When Satan Stops Lying

“[T]hat ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9 ESV).

Satan loves to lie. He loves to help us justify our actions. He loves to convince us that his way is the only way.

Ultimately we see the truth. And that’s okay with him too. The knife of his lie is in us. Realizing the truth twists the knife.

In her forthcoming book Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage, Dannah Gresh points out the effects of our realization of truth: shame.

“The enemy of our souls is so double-minded.
He convinces us that sin isn’t so bad before we do it.
But afterward he tortures us with our unworthiness
because our sin is so very bad.”

Some sins we can recover from. Others leave lasting consequences.

“After my abortions, I couldn’t listen to a baby cry. If I was in a store or restaurant and heard a baby’s cry, it sent a chill up my spine. Think about our nervous system and how everything that happens to us is stored there. There’s a reason that a baby crying did this to me,” Emily Rarick.

And that reason is truth–the realization that abortion, what seemed to be the apparent easy way out at the time, was no such thing. Emily realized that abortion kills babies. She knew it killed her babies.

Another big lie of our times debunked–that we can change who we are:

“I want to tell everyone what they took from us, what irreversible really means, and what that reality looks like for us [trans people].

“No one told me any of what I’m going to tell you now.”

. . . Now, now I’m trapped in the wrong body” TullipR (de-transitioned man)

The lie that TullipR followed changed his life permanently and irrevocably.

That lie states that God made a mistake.

God doesn’t make mistakes. Only we can do that. He’s trying to save us from ourselves.

Sex change surgery is supposed to be an easy (or easier) way out. You think this way, and we can adjust your body to meet the hopes of your thoughts. It would be harder work to adjust your thoughts and feelings to what your chromosomes and body chemistry and structure already are. That’s the lie.

“[T]he medical evidence suggests that sex reassignment does not adequately address the psychosocial difficulties faced by people who identify as transgender. Even when the procedures are successful technically and cosmetically, and even in cultures that are relatively “trans-friendly,” transitioners still face poor outcomes. Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D.

Poor outcomes. And convincing the rest of us that it’s right doesn’t change the outcomes.

The lies that aborting unborn babies and changing the sex of children when they’re too young to decide and too easily manipulated eventually come to light for most.

It takes time, sometimes.

One study claims 95 percent of women have no regrets five years post-abortion. The study has a low participation rate (37.5 percent, despite paying the participants). It disregards what happens to the non-responding participants for the first five years and the responding percentage of women over the next five years.

“In 2010, at the age of 18, I had two abortions a mere six months apart. My regret was not instant, in fact, it was years before I truly realized what I had done. It crept in slowly, little by little, taking pieces of me and breaking me in ways that I never imagined possible.” Emily Rarick

Pamela Whitehead, executive director of ProLove Ministries, said it took her a decade to identify the effects of terminating her pregnancy. Just days after her abortion in 2001, the 9/11 terrorist attack happened, and she buried her grief. In the following years, she attempted suicide, became addicted to drugs, and lived in a homosexual relationship even though she wasn’t a lesbian. It wasn’t until 2011 that Whitehead realized her abortion had been the ‘precipitating factor’ of her self-destructive decisions. ‘I could trace it back to that event,’ she said.”

Regarding transition surgery, a controversial study but one quoted by the Obama Administration in 2016 says:

“We note, mortality [death, most often from suicide] from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years. The risk for psychiatric hospitalization was 2.8 times greater than in controls even after adjustment for prior psychiatric disease. “

The lawsuits filed by detransitioners who’ve realized the truth–that their desire to change was transitory– have begun in earnest.

Truth comes to light eventually.

Too late for many.

Desire truth. Embrace truth. Speak truth.

And so save some.

Photo Credit: Pexels

Nancy E. Head’s Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Faithfulness, No Matter What

“Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, . . . and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.” So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them, Exodus 1:15-20, (NASB).  

It hadn’t always been like that for the Hebrews in Egypt. Joseph had risen in influence and authority. In a time of famine, he brought his father, his brothers, and their families to the land where food was available. Over time, the famine subsided, but Joseph died, and a new Pharoah ascended. Life for the Hebrews in Egypt changed.

Did they notice small changes, little limitations, and growing oppression? Or did life change all at once in one day?

Do we notice the changes around us?

Throughout our lives, era blends into era almost without our noticing. Social mores take on different hues and shades and before we know it, society has taken itself to a new place.

Jake Meador: “In a hedonistic world [during the 1990s to 2010s], hostility to Christianity . . . was mostly centered around Christians being a moral buzzkill. But in our new moralistic world [from the 2010s to today], it’s not simply that Christianity is boring or not fun, but that Christianity is actively harmful because it suggests that there are some types of authentic selves [identities] that are actually bad and should not be privately accepted or publicly expressed.”

This change from a hedonistic era to a moralistic one happened gradually yet arrived more suddenly than we imagined it could.

Our times never stand still. We move forward and backward as a culture, not in a linear fashion. We’ve moved forward, for example, by establishing fairness in workplace laws regarding ethnicity and gender, but backward in other ways, embracing sin, then celebrating it, then insisting on approval for it.

Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, and Louise Perry in their respective books agree that Americans assume societal movement is always progress and always good. As Sax says, in this viewpoint, progress “has a smooth, upward trajectory albeit with a few hiccups.” Such a viewpoint, Perry points out, “encourages us to ignore both the ways in which things may have become worse over time and the advice offered by older generations.

That so many see our faith as not only passe but also “bad” for society is not something Christians can simply ignore. The crucial question becomes: How do we maintain our faith and faith communities in such an environment?

More from Meador: “What will primarily sustain the church in this moment is plain to any student of church history, for it is what has always sustained the church: the grace of God offered to us through the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments, which equip us to live lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. What sustained the church then was a quiet confidence in the providence of God, a patient resilience amidst suffering, and a humble reliance on God to give what is needed, in life and death. If we would lean upon those resources, they could sustain us today as well.”

The Hebrew midwives in Egypt knew honoring God was more important than obeying a wrong decree. God blessed them by placing them within families, perhaps providing a measure of safety not otherwise available. For many Hebrews, life got harder–until God sent a rescuer.

Today we wait for our promised rescuer.

And like the midwives of long ago, we must remain faithful until the day.

Photo Credit: Pexels

Nancy E. Head’s Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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