John 8:44, commentary and pictures

Jesus spoke this as the light of the world to Jewish leaders who claimed Abraham and God as Father, teaching that spiritual fatherhood is proved by works and not by lineage or claim. To belong to the devil is to share his desires and deeds, refusing truth because He tells it, hating and plotting to kill the truth-teller, while the devil himself never remained in truth because no truth is in him but speaks lies from himself as their source and father. He had once stood in truth as a covering cherub next to Christ, radiant and exalted, but fell through jealousy, self-exaltation and desire to be as God, twisting God's words, planting distrust, and drawing a host of angels into rebellion until expelled to head a rival kingdom. As father of lies he contradicted God in Eden, charged God with tyranny, promised liberty in disobedience and freedom from death, and has ever since disguised soul-destroying error as truth; as murderer from the beginning he led Cain to kill, stirred heathen sacrifice and Herod's massacre, and led priests and mob to crucify Christ, thereby exposing himself before the universe as liar, accuser and murderer. There are only two classes, children of light who obey truth and children of darkness who do his works in hatred, law-breaking, slander and persecution, yet every person may choose Christ the Son of the living God for power to become a child of God, overcoming by Scripture, the Spirit and full surrender, for there is no middle ground.

Setting and Plain Meaning

This saying belongs to Jesus' teaching as the light of the world, in which He promised that whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

It was spoken to Jewish leaders and Pharisees who claimed Abraham and God as Father, yet their claims were tested and disproved by works rather than by lineage or profession. True children of Abraham would obey God, and true children of God would love Jesus as sent from God, but by turning from God, refusing His Son, and seeking to kill the One speaking God's truth they did the deeds of another father. Their deceitful malice, opposition to Christ, and rejection of truth exposed a desperate condition and proved the devil their father, whose murderous and lying character appeared in their hatred, plotting, and refusal to believe.

The lusts of the father are his desires, deeds, and works, and to be of the devil is to do his works and share his character. Those who follow his desires reject Christ's truth, disregard God's commands concerning righteousness and true doctrine until evil becomes hard to distinguish from good, refuse to believe Christ because He tells the truth, and show by hatred, plotting to kill, and rejection of truth that the devil is father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not remain in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie he speaks of himself, for he is a liar and the source and father of lies, whose falsehood stands opposed to life-giving truth.

The truth offended these self-righteous hearers because it exposed the fallacy of error and condemned their teaching and practice, so it was unwelcome and they would rather close their eyes than humble themselves to confess they had been in error. They did not love the truth nor desire it even though it was truth, and because Christ told the truth they believed Him not. Though they believed the evidence and trembled at fulfilled words they would not face what those words meant, and they could not understand His speech nor hear God's words because they were not of God. The rebuke was spoken with sorrow over their terrible fallen condition, yet heard with uncontrollable anger it still held the enemies powerless by majesty and weight of truth, and the same Pharisee-like blindness still confuses judgment about what spirit is moving.

Satan's Fall From Truth

He once remained in the truth, holding a high place in heaven as a covering cherub next to Christ, highly exalted and radiant with holiness. He received light and glory from the Father and the Son, and his home was one of holiness and joy. He once served under God and Jesus Christ in a radiant and lovely state, glorious and holy in exaltation and character. Though surpassingly lovely and holding a kingly throne, he did not remain faithful to the truth.

He swerved from allegiance to God through disloyalty, jealousy, self-exaltation, and false accusations against Christ and the Father. He desired supremacy and to be as God, turned against God, lost his high position, and lost his connection with Him. He became disloyal and an avowed antagonist and open enemy of God. He eventually believed his own lies, mistaking darkness for light.

His departure from truth began his rebellion, in which he deceived angels by misrepresenting God. He twisted God’s words, accused God, put God’s purposes in a false light, and worked through crookedness and fraud while God acts in truth and justice. He secretly planted his own distrust and discontent by taking advantage of the loving trust of the angels under him, so that his agency was not discerned. He instilled thoughts and misrepresentations in angels’ minds, then presented the ideas he had instilled as though they originated with those he had deceived, cunningly drawing his hearers to speak out their feelings and then repeating their words as evidence they were not in harmony with God’s government. While claiming perfect loyalty to God and ostensibly seeking to remove dissatisfaction, reconcile the disaffected, and preserve harmony and peace, he urged that changes in the order and laws of heaven were necessary, misconstruing and distorting them to excite dissent, dissatisfaction, opposition to the law of God, discord, and rebellion. By such crooked dealing he drew sympathizers with him, deceived subjects to follow him, ensnared the unsuspecting, and made many disaffected. When Jesus came he still concealed this true character as deceiver, falsifier, apostate, accuser, and murderer, presenting himself as a loyal angel concerned for God’s honor.

By his own act he compelled his expulsion from heaven with a large army of associate rebels who were cast out with him, separating the disloyal from the loyal. Cast out, he became a kingdom to himself, a determined and active opponent who planted the standard of rebellion, established rebellion against God’s law, and gathered evil powers to his cause. On earth he set up a rival empire and rival kingdom where all powers of evil join to oppose God’s influence. There he works from hatred of God to draw attention to himself, to shape men into his own nature, to shut out every ray of light and suppress the light, and to wipe God’s likeness from men by giving them his own fallen character and stamping his image on their souls. His followers take his side by selfishness and by withholding from God what belongs to God, coming under his banner while selfishness and covetousness, which is idolatry, sets his throne between worshipers and God, so that talents entrusted for God’s service are used to build his kingdom, redirected to his service, and he is worshiped instead of God.

His not abiding in the truth was an apostasy in heaven whose origin cannot be explained. He turned from truth and became the instigator of rebellion and evil. He planted the standard of rebellion and influenced others to unite with him against God so that evil might become a power against God. The verse sets two great principles of loyalty and disloyalty, calling for faithful service, courage, no compromise with rebellion, and a plain line between the obedient and the disobedient in doing the Lord’s will. His deceptions give soul-destroying and destructive error the appearance of truth, enabling him to mislead and delude those who reject truth and accept fables, while he disguises himself as benefactor and savior leading people to accept counterfeits, including the worship of humanity.

Father and Source of Lies

The devil is a liar from the beginning of his apostasy, the father of lies and of all falsehood and deception, in whom there is no truth and who when he speaks falsehood speaks of himself. His deceptions oppose Christ and obscure the gospel, turning God's truth into a lie and standing opposite Christ the Son of the living God, who is the Truth and whose life-giving eternal teachings endure forever. His lying is part of his long war against God's government, by which he turns others against God and overcomes people with deceptive claims, and those who accept his falsehoods identify themselves with him and with all who are disloyal. Both Christ and Satan are set before every person for choice or rejection, and as delusions captivate the religious world each must choose whether to take Christ or Satan, for trusting lies or pretense instead of Christ risks eternal life, and those who mislead others from safe paths are accountable for turning them aside.

In Eden he used the serpent's voice to bear false witness against the Creator and exalt himself above God, seducing Adam and Eve into apostasy after they failed to heed the warning against evil. He contradicted God's warning by telling Eve she would not die if she ate the forbidden fruit, falsely claiming God was withholding knowledge and power and that eating would enlighten and make them as gods. From humanity's beginning he used deception to turn people toward apostasy, seeking to erase God's image from human beings and imprint his own in its place, and so succeeded in bringing sin into the world. The same voice told Adam he need not obey and would not die, told Cain no slain lamb was needed leading to a rejected offering and then to murder, and still claims the Ten Commandments were done away.

In heaven and since he began a course of deception, making false claims about God and using crooked means to persuade angels to resist God's will. He lied about God's character as tyrannical and vindictive, shifting blame for his own cruelty and deception onto the Creator and portraying God as a cruel tyrant, charging God with his own evil character while claiming God's character as his own. By making God seem unjust and his own rule seem mild he leads people to distrust God's government and laws and to leave their allegiance to him, telling men they need not obey with resulting disobedience and harm, saying breaking the law brings liberty when sin brings bondage. He uses subtle reasoning to foster enmity toward God, hoping God will withdraw mercy and destroy the human race which he believes would vindicate his claims before unfallen beings, and he works through human agencies gathered from generation to generation to carry out his purposes, drawing to himself the worship that belongs to God and setting his own throne between the worshiper and the Father with all his vast machinery put into action in the last days. Since Christ's resurrection he has specially worked to separate Father and Son by first blinding Jews to cry for the law and away with the Son and then blinding Christians to cry for Christ and away with the law.

He originated the spirit of self-justification, which was indulged by Adam and Eve as soon as they yielded to his influence and has been exhibited ever since by all the sons and daughters of Adam. Instead of humbly confessing sin they shielded themselves by casting blame upon others, upon circumstances, and upon God Himself, Adam laying guilt partly on God and partly on Eve and Eve putting blame on the serpent while implying God was responsible for making the serpent and suffering him to come into Eden. That spirit charges God with responsibility for the fall and makes even His blessings an occasion of murmuring against Him. Confessions shaped by self-justification and excuse-making are not inspired by the divine Spirit and will not be acceptable before God, while true repentance bears its own guilt without deception or hypocrisy.

He gives soul-destroying errors the appearance of truth, disguising himself as benefactor and savior and leading people to accept counterfeits including the worship of humanity. Those who turn away from truth and accept fables are caught by his delusions, for he deludes those who reject the truth. He uses lying spirits to impersonate apostles and dead people, presenting the infidel Thomas Paine as in heaven, making it seem that apostles contradict the teachings they gave by the Holy Ghost and contradict their own writings. These deceptions cast doubt on the divine origin of the Bible and present infidelity as heavenly teaching, undermining confidence in God's word and in Christ's birth, death and resurrection. He imitated Moses' miracles through Pharaoh's enchanters and disguises temptation and sin as righteousness with false pretenses and suspicion to lead away from truth, and he works last-day miracles that those without love of truth will believe.

His falsehood includes forged writings and invented council decrees to make papal supremacy seem ancient, greedily accepted by a church that rejected truth. It includes false claims that Seventh-day Adventists do not preach Christ's divinity, scorn of Christ's coming, Noah's rejecters following agreeable falsehoods, and worldly ambitions crowding out Christ. It includes deceptive science, human philosophy binding minds, and seductive higher education making men gods with no place for God. His lying work lays a seducing bait of beautifully clothed spiritualistic false theories about God, including an impersonal God diffused through nature and holy flesh, and the doctrine that those once sanctified cannot sin so that the sanctified are holy and their affections never in danger of leading astray. These ideas make truth of no effect, leaven minds, gain spiritualistic power over those who cannot see their evil and seduce souls, and ungodly teaching is followed by sinful acts, free love, fulfillment of evil desires of hearts professedly sanctified yet far from purity of thought and practice, resulting in self-satisfied impurity and impenitence. His covert deceptive work in the churches resembles his deception in Eden, and it works through false prophecy and disunity through unsanctified ministers and through corrupted worship music as a snare, while false theories and sophistries accepted even unknowingly change the course so that many souls are lost.

His lying work appears in everyday deception, taking possession of mind and soul through business fraud and false representation and through worldly business and religious work manipulated by deceit. His policy can delude even people who think they are serving God, including ministers and physicians accepting his sophistries, leading them to speak falsely and deceive while conscience warns them, as love of the world takes possession of the heart and drives out the Holy Spirit. Lies and deception in speech and conduct, even when entertained in the church, reflect his influence rather than the true noble Christlike character, and falsehood becomes common and is woven into human work and thought through deceptive words by those entrusted with holy things, lies put in minds and repeated, family deceit, and evil reports prejudicing believers. He uses those he has misled to criticize, condemn and oppose people who stand firmly for truth, working through harsh denunciatory speech with satanic energy. He gains control of the unconsecrated heart until a spark makes temper uncontrollable, as with Hazael, and untruthfulness deepens into habit through silence, prevarication and exaggeration, as when he told Martha she did not love Jesus though she did, using her conscientiousness as accuser to distress her and prompt her to condemn herself and distrust God.

Murderer From the Beginning

The devil has been a murderer and destroyer from the start, and under his dominion men become liars and murderers like him. The crime and misery filling the world and the horrible murders happening every day are the fruit of people submitting to his principles and doing what he wants, having chosen as he did to have their own way and forfeit bliss. Those who are lost perish because they make that same choice to have their own way.

Cain followed his spirit when Satan first led him to accuse God of injustice, then to deceive Abel by inviting him into the field while intending to kill him, and then to lie to God to hide his guilt, conduct that made him a fitting pupil of the source of murder and lies. Once Satan gained power over the human race he moved people to hate and kill one another, and to defy God's authority more openly he turned murder into religion by leading people to break the sixth commandment. Through false ideas about God he led heathen nations to think human sacrifices were needed to gain favor with their gods, bringing horrible cruelties under idolatry including making children go through fire before idols, honoring those who came through unharmed as specially favored by the gods and beyond punishment, and sacrificing those who burned to appease the gods' anger, abominations that in times of great apostasy spread to some extent among the Israelites.

Murder belongs to the devil's spirit and character and taking human life manifests it, opposite to God who is mercy, love and tenderness. When Moses killed the Egyptian who was oppressing an Israelite, trying by his own Egyptian learning and military ability to redress Israel's wrongs and deliver them from bondage, he acted in that murderous spirit. By doing so he showed himself unfit at that time to represent the God of mercy, love and tenderness. Herod's envy and hatred were stirred by the devil as the source of murderous intent to seek the infant King's death, first through pretense and subtlety and then through force. Stirred thus he ordered the massacre of children in Bethlehem and its surrounding region to kill the infant Jesus.

Satan was personified in Barabbas the guilty murderer, for he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth. Under satanic inspiration the priests and rulers persuaded the multitude to spare the murderer and reject the world's Redeemer, refusing God and putting Him to open shame in His Son, and as a nation they would continue to act out his dictation, filled with madness at the very name of Christ. Choosing Satan as ruler they became filled with his attributes and revealed the spirit of their chosen master who caused the fall of the first parents, betraying Christ in the person of His saints and accepting a murderer in His place, which shows what human nature will do when the love of God is not abiding in the soul and the restraining Spirit of God is removed. If Satan had a nation wholly under his control he would murder the innocent and save the wicked, and Barabbas represents that whole class who murder the innocent and save the wicked in doing their father's will.

At Christ's trial and crucifixion Satan led the Jewish priests and rulers as his agents to stir up the passions of the murderous mob against the Prince of life, raising the cry Crucify him, scourging him, plaiting the crown of thorns, mocking and deriding him, revealing the power of Satan over the human mind. The taunts and insults against Jesus came from Satan's influence, and at the cross he revealed his character by shedding the blood of Christ. In instigating men to put to death innocent human beings and even the incarnate God, and seeking to keep Christ locked in the tomb, he acted out his own attributes and his disguise was torn away. His crooked course and accusations had concealed his purpose for a time, but by causing Christ's death he was exposed before the unfallen worlds, the loyal universe and the heavenly universe as a liar, thief, accuser and murderer, and the evil character he tried to fasten on Christ was fastened on himself, defeating his purposes.

The same murderous hatred displays itself by exciting fury in a proud heart against one who has done no harm, whose blameless life and favor with God reproach evil by contrast. Envy is born of pride, and when kept in the heart it grows into hatred and then into revenge and murder, as when Saul turned against David because the Lord was with David. Judas developed Satan's attributes by persisting in his own temper and spirit and refusing to be united with Christ, despising offered lessons, opportunities and privileges until he partnered with the accuser of the brethren who is a murderer and went forth to betray his Lord. Continuing to despise privileges in the same way finally passes the line and places a person irretrievably with the hosts of rebellion.

He instigates people to persecute God's people, and his power as deceiver and murderer will be felt by those who love and fear God. After failing to overcome Christ in the wilderness he used strategy to blind the Jewish people to their Redeemer, stir religious leaders with hatred of the champion of truth, and lead them to reject and discourage Christ, so that Israel's leaders became instruments in his war against the Saviour, while those who entice others to sin serve his purposes with influence especially harmful when they profess Christianity and claim knowledge of God. Under his direction men inflict untold pain and misery on fellow men, and by masterly inventions and crooked deceptions he continually seeks to ruin souls God seeks to save and confuse minds about the Way, the Truth and the Life. The same spirit still drives men to persecute even unto death to force worship of an idol sabbath brought in by the man of sin who thinks to change times and laws, and he works through blood-thirsty ministers and apostles on earth who are resolved to spill the blood of those who will not abandon the word of God. Satan and his agents may cause all possible suffering to the body, but to torture and kill the body is all they can do; they cannot control the conscience, tarnish the soul, harm the soul, or change the character of the man who conscientiously serves God.

God allows Satan, the first great rebel, to reveal himself as liar, accuser and murderer to the last while people are tested to show whether they are loyal or disloyal to heaven's laws and the laws that govern the kingdom of heaven. For a time oppressors acting in his spirit are allowed to triumph over those who keep God's holy commandments, giving all the same opportunity given to the first great rebel to reveal the spirit that moves them. His temporary triumph over commandment-keepers makes their final triumph more marked and complete, more glorious and full, upon whom the Lord looks with pity, compassion, tender yearning and love. His treatment of Christ and his lawless, disobedient principles of accusation, falsehood and murder revealed that the same spirit with which he ruled people under his power would have governed heaven and led him to treat the intelligences of heaven if he had been allowed to control them, proving false his claim that breaking God's law brings liberty and exaltation when sin brings bondage and degradation. When mercy withdraws and earth is left to the chosen king, he will lead earth's powers in the last battle of the great day where rebellion is forever suppressed, and those under his zeal who manifest the same envy and hatred against God's people stand exposed before the heavenly universe, the unfallen worlds and the fallen world in that true character.

Children Known by Works

There are two classes, children of light who obey the truth and children of darkness who reject it, and defiant resistance to God and refusal of His drawing make a person a child of the wicked one walking in self-will and pride. Man was created pure and holy in God's image, but through transgression is changed to Satan's similitude, and that change is seen in the violence, transgression and crime in the world, yet Christ desires the salvation of all such and cannot endure that one should be lost. Those who do works of evil belong to the devil, and lives bearing bitterness and evil rather than the fruit of conversion are unready for judgment and need repentance and turning to God. When light is presented, those who will not follow where Christ leads but choose men's sayings over disturbing truth belong to Satan the first apostate, sacrificing God's favor and refusing Christ's life so that they have no faith working by love to purify the soul.

Religious profession does not make a true follower of Christ when the life reveals iniquity, corruption, hypocrisy and worldlikeness, for people are known as the devil's children by doing his works. Claim to believe in God means nothing when men possess Satan's spirit and do his work, reject light, substitute human commandments for God's, and oppose those who keep and teach God's law, and such profession does not make safe guides. Those who reject truth and by falsehood and misrepresentation deceive others to turn them from believing and obeying it follow the devil's character and desires, for he has no place in truth and was a murderer from the beginning, and their converts are led further into ruin. Those who believe and teach a lie and lead others to feel at ease in transgression share the first rebel's disloyalty as source of lies, wickedness and violence, and will be punished with him.

Claiming Abraham or God as Father is vain when men hate the Word of truth, hate the message and the messenger, refuse to believe truth heard from God, and seek to kill the teller of it, for such hatred and murder are the devil's deeds and lusts urged by his accusing spirit and prove him father. The same is true today of all in the world and in professed churches who call God Father yet hate the Word with intense hatred, resist loyalty to God, and oppose testing truth. The Pharisees were children of Satan because like him they resisted the goodness of God's Son, shared His hatred of Christ, opposed the truth, and plotted to destroy Him. Those who reject Christ and trample God's law act in their father's spirit, doing the deeds of him who opposed and betrayed Jesus, and are drawn into deception, misrepresentation and false witness.

All who break God's law and teach others to break even the least of it are Satan's agents, he as root and they as branches warring against Jehovah and recorded in heaven as associate rebels with the first great apostate. Those who claim to believe yet reject light, substitute human commandments for God's, and oppose law-keepers show alignment with Satan despite religious claims. Those who trample law under unholy feet and reject Christ do their father's deeds without compunction, filled with Satan's attributes and the spirit of those who insulted and betrayed Jesus, betraying Christ in His saints and accepting a murderer in His place, showing what human nature does when God's love is not abiding and His restraining Spirit is removed. When light plainly given in God's Word is rejected, Satan gains authority and works through human agents including clergy to oppose God's law and promote contrary laws, and those who refuse to follow Christ but choose men's sayings and neighbors' favor over disturbing complacency yield faith, become open transgressors, stand under Satan's banner in oneness with transgressors, and in the day of judgment according to works will be found among transgressors. Religious feeling or claims of holiness and spurious doctrine resting on feeling do not make love genuine while commandments are refused, for such disobedience aligns with the father of lies who deceives into disobedience and brings the reward of disobedience.

Christ denounced those who accuse and slander others as doing the devil's work, and those who act as His accusers share that denunciation. Evil speaking, suspicion and confederacy against others belong to his influence as source of lies and murder and accuser of the brethren. Those ruled by God's Spirit show harmony, love and unity, but those belonging to the devil as source of strife display envy, conflict and jealousy, and those controlled by uncontrolled passion serve an evil master and cannot follow Christ unless passions, physical powers and mental faculties are brought under His will. Harsh denunciatory words spoken with satanic energy come from the father of lies standing beside the speaker, and are shameful and recorded in heaven. Selfish withholding from God, fabricating reports and false witness, and calling heaven-sent warning faultfinding and accusing repeat the work Satan stirred in unbelieving Jews who called Christ's words and works satanic, and those who close eyes to light and ears to evidence, refuse the channel of light, call God's warning darkness, and reject known will and plain statements of Satan's workings until the Spirit can do no more place themselves where Pharaoh stood.

The priests, rulers and people who chose Barabbas and rejected Christ were of their father the devil and did his works, for Satan was personified in Barabbas the guilty murderer, and under satanic inspiration they persuaded the multitude to spare the murderer and reject the Redeemer, refusing God and shaming Him in His Son, acting as the father acts and continuing as a nation to act out his dictation with madness at Christ's name. The chief priests and rulers around the cross were of their father and did his lusts, with the devil as leader, and in bold presumptuous blasphemy and mocking they acted out his inspiration, showing by hatred, envy and resistance of evidence until eternal night that they were not one with God nor knew Him whom to know is life, peace and assurance. Each act of opposing God's servants and declared truth intensified rebellion and hardened yielding, until despite light and conviction of the Holy Spirit they persisted and were controlled by Satan at his will. The wicked Jews who rejected and scorned His teachings were possessed by the same Satan who possessed the Capernaum demoniac and tempted Jesus in the wilderness, but with them he assumed not raging madness but piety and learning to hide real motives in refusing the Saviour. The rulers at the sepulcher resembled the devil as father by sharing his character, for though recognizing that Jesus' words had foretold events that came to pass they would not face their meaning but believed the evidence and trembled.

All people are the Lord's property bought with a price by Christ's ransom, and to ignore relationship to God as His children leaves only the other fatherhood, to be contentedly the devil's children doing his deeds. To be his children is stubbornly to hold to Satan's side, give influence to the great apostate, serve Satan instead of the Lord, bury talents in the world and earth, and refuse entrusted work, stewardship, use of talent for truth, and cooperation with God. It is to resist Christ crucified presented and lifted up to draw sinners and to resist the pleading Spirit, refusing to yield the stubborn will to Christ seeking to draw. All influence for truth that might have been exercised, all improvement of talents in actual service, and all good through the atoning sacrifice that might have been done but was left undone will be charged when stewards give account and are weighed in the balances and found wanting, leaving the impenitent with no excuse for wasted opportunities.

Warning and Way Out

To hear this word as rejection is the opposite of being welcomed to inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world. Escape from that verdict comes by obedience to the whole will of God and entire surrender of the will to Him. This means acknowledging belonging to Him as bought with a price and laying every possession upon the altar, however dear, with nothing too precious to sacrifice. Following the sophistries and principles of the father of lies means yielding to the enemy instead of hearing God's voice. Those who harden their hearts against God's warnings and refuse to repent may lose the ability to discern good from evil and perish in their sins.

The apostate liar from the beginning stands opposite Christ the Son of the living God, and both are set before every person for choice or rejection. As delusions captivate the religious world each individual must choose whether to take Christ or Satan. Those who choose to receive the devil cherish his spirit, while choosing Christ brings salvation, since Christ gave His life for the world and gives believers power to become children of God. None can occupy middle ground, for all are either decided believers holding the truth in righteousness in subjection to faith, or guilty professors of godliness led by agencies of evil. The latter deny the Holy Spirit's leading under deceptive reasoning and all deceivableness of unrighteousness worked upon disaffected minds in rebellion, and deserve condemnation and the wrath of the Lamb.

The devil is a liar and deceiver from the beginning whose skill in deception remains powerful, and he seeks to twist words and provoke into controversy. Fallen people cannot overcome him by their own strength, but Christ came in human nature, united divine power with human strength, and won the victory on their behalf so that they may overcome temptation in his name. The Scriptures reveal his deceptions which oppose God's truth, and knowing them enables people, including the young, to distinguish truth from error and escape the world's corruptions. God's truth is the Bread of life satisfying the soul's deepest hunger unlike food meeting only temporal needs, and it is the weapon brought against lies that shakes and defeats him. Temptation is not itself sin, yet he seeks to separate people from Christ and lead them into harmful choices, especially when they hold responsible positions where others follow their example, and Christ who resisted gives help to those who look to Him. Arguing with him or repeating his words gives him advantage through sophistry and false statements, so the sure defense is dependence on God, standing on eternal truth and answering temptation with Scripture.

He tempts by making evil appear enticing and pleasant, but he cannot compel to sin, and each person remains free to accept or refuse. Those who repeat his suggestions become agents of his deception, and breaking away means rejecting those suggestions rather than continuing to spread them. Freedom comes by breaking away from the tyranny of self and coming under the guidance of Christ, where He presents clear truth with living power to the sin-sick soul as the remedy for sin. There the heart receives power to be molded while the Holy Spirit takes the things of God and shows them and leads into all truth, and Christ as Advocate in the heavenly courts gives help for the tremendous struggle to break away from the enemy and overcome self. His deceptive work includes lying suppositions framed as science to lead minds astray, take time belonging to the things of God, and take souls captive with a variety of scientific lies prepared for special occasions as he waits opportunity. His sophistries and seductive theories come through human ministers and medical workers offering a popular religion in which men develop into gods and presenting human theories as more wonderful, higher and grander than the teachings of Christ, leaving no place for God or Christ. Even consenting to listen lets a subtle influence weave them into the mind until men learn to love them, poisoning the mind like a deadly viper and deadening sensibilities like hypnotism, so they must be refused from the first sound and Christ's teachings never exchanged for them.

Deception belongs to Satan while truth is of God, and departing from truth places a person under the power of the wicked one. Speaking exact truth is difficult because bias, preconceived opinions, incomplete knowledge and errors of judgment can prevent right understanding, so the mind must be continually guided by Christ who is truth. Lying belongs to the father of lies, and deception and repeated concealment serve his control, darken the conscience, and can make glaring falsehood seem true to the liar. Those who make untruthful statements serve him, and practicing untruthfulness can deepen into a settled habit, so Christians must speak and act truthfully and never use silence to support a lie. This warning covers evading truth through silence, prevarication or exaggeration, for practicing falsehood harms faith and character, and those who love and make lies will be excluded from the city of God.

His whole work of lying is recorded in the statute books of heaven, and every offense against God however minute is set down in the reckoning. Those who lend themselves to his service by presenting his lies to men by precept and practice will receive according to their deeds, and when justice acts it will strike because God's hatred of sin is intense and overwhelming. This applies especially to his lies in regard to the law of God put forth by the great general of apostasy. He is the root and all his workers who teach his lies are the branches, and root and branch will be destroyed by the fires of the last days.