Satan is telling the Church in these days that we cannot win, that he has already won over our relatives to be his followers, that his oppression of our churches and dominion in our cities is a forgone conclusion. He is advising us to try to hide out and hang on by our fingernails until the end of the age, and hope that God will rescue us before it’s too late.

But let me tell you plainly that these are lies from the pit of hell. This shouldn’t surprise us for Satan is the father of lies. We learn this from Jesus in John 8:44. This is one of the best snapshots of the character and nature of Satan in the Bible. In the preceding verse the Pharisees had insulted Jesus by saying “We were not born of fornication …” This phrase means “we are not illegitimate children, but you are!” To this Jesus responded, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Jesus tells us clearly here that Satan has no truth in him. Everything he speaks is a lie! The very name Satan means “deceiver,” and even when he tells you something factual his only intent is to lead you down the path of deception. If Satan told me my name was Randall D. Kittle, I would tell him immediately “That’s a lie!” for his intention is always wicked and evil. Even a blessing is a curse when it comes from him. Every fact Satan states is a lie. It must be, because his intention is to deceive you, and Jesus says “there is no truth in him.” Let that settle into your heart. It is not that Satan has little truth or few truths in him. God has told us that there is no truth in him … zero … none! Even when Satan quotes Scripture (as he did when tempting Jesus in the wilderness) it is no longer truth, for it is spoken by one in whom there is no truth, whose desire is to lead you astray.

Sometimes we get confused because an accusation from the enemy comes to us and instead of recognizing it for what it is — an attack — we think “well some of what they’re saying is true.” Please remember this, no matter how many facts are in an attack from the enemy there is no truth in it. You don’t have to analyze it or try to learn what you can from it. There is nothing in it worth learning because we don’t want to be taught by Satan! I learned this lesson years ago when someone who was leaving our church in anger wrote me a scathing note filled with accusations. As I read it, I realized that some of the things they said were truth. I prayed asking the Lord to show me what to do with this very negative criticism. The Lord spoke to me clearly a most humorous phrase, “You don’t have to strain this manure trying to find some nickels.” God doesn’t want us being trained up by the enemy. If the Lord desires to bring correction, He has many ways to do this that don’t require Satan’s assistance.

Father Of Lies Or Light
Satan is the very essence of lying, because he is the very void of God. While Satan is the father of lies, our heavenly Father is the Father of Lights. James 1:17–18 tells us that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.” In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” And John 14:16 tells us that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth: “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16). God is the Father of Light who births us by His word of truth. God is the Eternal Son who was and is truth incarnate. And God is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.

God is truth, and everything God says no matter how unbelievable or inconceivable is true — even when it is not factual. The truth of God is not limited by the facts. This is very hard for our western mindset to grasp. Our society has elevated and glorified facts and “proven theories” to the point where we no longer recognize and revere truth. This elevation of facts at the cost of truth is really the spirit of the anti-christ at work, for we need to remember that God is truth.

Consider The Source
If God calls Gideon a mighty man of valor when he is hiding in a hole in the ground, then it is truth even if it is not currently a fact; for God knows the end from the beginning, and God is truth. If God says your name is Peter when it has always been Simon, and you are compulsive and reactionary (not exactly the solid foundation “Peter” infers), then that too is truth. To truly comprehend truth we need to understand that the source is much more important than the facts. If Satan says my name is Randall, there is no truth in what he says even though all my legal papers may say that my name is Randall. It cannot be truth, for Satan doesn’t hold to the truth and has no truth in him. On the other hand, if God tells me my name is Barnabas even though most people don’t see me greatly gifted in encouragement and all my legal papers, the IRS, and my mother tell me that is not correct, then that is truth, for God cannot lie (see 1 Samuel 15:29, Titus 1:2). In Him there is no shadow or variation — no darkness, no alteration.

Satan’s Battle Plan
As the father of lies, Satan’s spiritual battle plan is usually not really an open offensive, it is often little more than a campaign of lies. Most of the victories Satan gets are either a lie (he hasn’t won, but convinces us he has), or they are because we have believed a lie! This may sound oversimplified, but believing lies brings defeat and death.

In World War II, the Nazis very effectively used their propaganda campaign to help win their early victories. Through exaggeration, misinformation, and lies they convinced the opposition that they didn’t have a chance. When the Germans invaded Poland, the Polish soldiers surrendered in a ratio of ten-to-one (ten Polish soldiers surrendered for each German soldier). Preceding their invasion there had been week after week of Nazi propaganda convincing the Polish soldiers it was pointless to resist.

The belief behind the Nazi propaganda campaign was this: “If you tell a lie long enough and often enough people will believe it.” This is exactly how Satan works. He repeatedly tells the saints of God lies until finally we believe them, giving him territory in our hearts, our homes, and our cities that rightfully belong to the kingdom of God and not to him. Much of the discouragement and defeat the Church is facing in our day is because we have believed the lies of the enemy.
Believing a lie can not only bring defeat but death. This only makes sense, for Satan, the father of lies, came to kill, steal, and destroy. For example, more than ninety years ago the maker of the Titanic boasted, “God Himself couldn’t sink the Titanic.” This prideful statement was a deadly lie that almost everyone believed. Because the ship-line believed this lie, the ship wasn’t fully outfitted for the emergency that would befall it. Because the crew believed this lie, even after they struck the iceberg they didn’t prepare the lifeboats and passengers as they should. More than one thousand people died because of the lie of the “unsinkable Titanic.”

The Lie About Sin & Failure
The most common lie Satan uses to gain victory in our lives is the lie about sin and failure. He subtly comes to you in temptation and whispers, “This is no big deal. … One little sin won’t matter. … No one will even know.” You look at the sin and it seems so small, especially compared to the sins of some other believers you know. Satan convinces you that this questionable choice is just a little bump in the road.

But when you decide to go ahead and step into that sin, you find that it wasn’t quite as small and insignificant as you thought. It trips up your walk of faith, and you fall flat on your face. As you turn around to look at this bump, it now looks like Mt. Everest. Satan then comes to you and says, “You’ve fallen in sin. Your God is a holy God, and you’re now separated from Him by this huge mountain of sin. You can never recover. You are spoiled and unusable.”

That is exactly how Peter felt after he had denied the Lord. Even after Jesus was resurrected, Peter still believed the lie that he was spoiled and unusable. But what did Jesus do? One day He started a little campfire on the shore and waited for Peter to come back from fishing. When Peter saw Jesus, he couldn’t wait for the boat to get to shore. He jumped into the water and swam to shore. Why? I believe it was because Peter knew it was his day of restoration, for our God is the God of reconciliation and restoration.

When we fall in sin, there are two people waiting for us, each with a stamp in their hands. Satan stands there like a quality inspector with a REJECT stamp, for he wants you to feel rejected and unable to be used. But God is also waiting when we fail, and He has a stamp with a recycling seal upon it. When we sin, Satan says “You’re a reject — worthless and unusable,” but God says “I am the God of restoration and reconciliation, and I will still make something precious and valuable from your life.” If you have fallen in sin, don’t believe the lies of the enemy that you are spoiled and unusable. Come to Jesus, for He reconciles and restores, and still wants to do great things in and through your life.

The Big Lie vs. The Great Truth
While the lie about sin and failure is Satan’s most common lie, his biggest lie is this: “God is holding out on you!” This is the very first lie that he told man in the third chapter of Genesis. Genesis 3:1 is the first time in the Bible we see the enemy speak, and he begins by lying: “And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, “You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Of course this is not a direct lie. It is a lie in the form of a rhetorical question. Instead of saying “that’s a lie, get out!”, the woman says, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’” (Genesis 3:2–3). Now Eve has lied, for God never said they could not touch the forbidden fruit. This is what happens when we engage in conversation with the enemy and don’t refute his lies. Inevitably, we will be drawn down to his level. Having brought the woman down to his level, the enemy now states a direct lie in verse 4, “You will not surely die.” Then in verse 5 we see Satan’s big lie, “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan is saying here, “God doesn’t want you to eat that fruit because He is holding out on you. There is so much more that you’re missing out on. God knows that if you eat it you will be like Him.”

Into every listening ear comes Satan’s accusations that God is holding out on them, that they could be like God, but He won’t let them. This is because that is how Satan feels; that was his unmet desire. “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). The great truth is that not only can’t we make ourselves like God, but we don’t have to, because God has already chosen to make us like Himself. This is what God said about our creation, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). The great truth is that God created us to be like Him so we could be the very family of God. The very thing that Satan wanted most — to make himself like the Most High God — God gave to us. Even in Genesis 3 after the man and woman sinned we see that God was still seeking mankind. “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:8–9). The great truth is that God is not against us … God is for us!

The big lie of the enemy is that God has to put up with us because He is God, and that He’s holding out on us because He is really against us. But the great truth found from the beginning to the end of the Bible is that God is for us, and has created us to be His own special people. Don’t listen to the lies of the enemy. God is for you not against you. The cry of His heart is “I rejoice and delight in you! You are My special treasure!” The living God of the universe loves you with an unfathomable, undeniable love.

God prophesied that He would take a people who serve Him and treasure them as His own special jewels. “‘They shall be Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels’” (Malachi 3:17). As believers, we are the gemstones of God. Diamonds … rubies …emeralds … sapphires and much, much more! We are not merely shiny rhinestones or cubic zirconias. We are the beautiful, brilliant gems of God! “They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown. How attractive and beautiful they will be!” (Zechariah 9:16–17). We are God’s valuable jewels — worth more to Him than all the rest of His creation!