Fighting a lie starts with naming it. When you are tempted to believe something false about God, about yourself, or about your life, you call out the lie, you replace it with God’s truth, and then you live according to that truth. That is how to fight lies with truth, and it is exactly what Jesus did when the enemy came after Him.
Christians put on truth because our enemy is a liar, and one of his main ways of attacking us is with lies. Paul tells us to put on the full armor of God so that we will not fall for it, so that we will stand firm (Ephesians 6:11). But before we get to the armor, it helps to see the weapon we are defending against, because the enemy has been using the same one since the beginning.
Where the Lie Started
In Genesis 3 we are introduced to the liar and his lies. Near the beginning of the Bible, after God created the first two people, Adam and Eve, He placed them in the garden and gave them everything they needed to flourish. He told them they could eat from any of the fruit in the garden except one tree in the middle, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they ate from it, they would die. Adam and Eve agreed. They would not eat from that tree.
Then the serpent entered the picture. Genesis 3:1-5 records it this way: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat from the fruit of the tree that’s in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent told the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'”
Notice the progression of the deceit. He starts by asking, “Did God really say.” God had really said. Then he contradicts the consequences, suggesting she would not certainly die, as though God would never follow through. And then he introduces an idea that does all the damage. Maybe God is not as good as you think He is. Maybe He is holding out on you. Perhaps you could have something better in your life if you simply decided for yourself what was true.
Why the Enemy Doesn’t Need You to Reject God
Here is how it works. If the devil can convince you that God is holding out on you, if he can seed that kind of doubt about God’s goodness or His trustworthiness, he does not need to convince you that all of it is wrong. He does not have to get you to flat out reject God. He only has to convince you to go ahead and do what you want, and then to keep telling you it is not that bad. That is the scheme.
If the enemy can convince me there is something good beyond what God has for me, I will go after that thing even if it takes me outside of God’s design. If Satan can convince me that my worth is found in what other people say about me, he can convince me to step outside of God’s design to get the approval of others. If Satan can convince me that my security is in the things of this world, I might go and try to accumulate more of the things of this world, even if that takes me outside of God’s design too. The scheme is simple. If he can get you to stop trusting God’s goodness and stop trusting God’s design for your life, the lie has done its work.
Eve fell for it, and Adam fell for it. Their disobedience is famously called the fall of humanity.
And if I am honest, I have fallen for it too, every time I seek approval outside of what God has for me, every time I go after more because I think a little more will finally make me secure, and every time I look for someone’s approval to make me feel like I am worth it. This is just how he works. It starts small, and you go for it a little.
What about you? What lies have you believed? Where have you allowed something other than God’s Word to tell you what is true?
How Jesus Answered the Same Liar
Fast forward to Matthew 4. The devil shows up again, this time not in the garden but in the wilderness, and he is there to tempt Jesus. In that encounter, Jesus shows us how to stand firm against the enemy’s schemes. Matthew 4:2-4 says, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, Jesus was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, ‘If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
Two more times Satan tried to tempt Him, either to send Him after something outside of God’s plan or to make Him question who He really was. Is your identity really that you are God’s Son? Three times the enemy came at Him, and three times Jesus came back with the same phrase: “It is written.”
Does Knowing the Bible Protect You From Lies?
Not on its own. The second time the devil tempted Jesus, when Jesus said “it is written,” Satan answered, “it is also written,” and quoted Scripture back to Him. Sit with that for a moment. The devil quoted Scripture.
Knowing what the Bible says is not the same thing as putting on the belt of truth. At some point what you read and what you hear has to travel from your head and your heart into your life. It has to change something. You have to put the belt of truth on and buckle it up.
The difference between Genesis 3 and Matthew 4 was not that Jesus knew the Scriptures and Adam and Eve did not. They knew them too. The difference is that when Satan tried to distort the Word of God, Adam and Eve leaned in and wanted to hear more from the snake. Jesus refused, told him plainly that it is written and that he is a liar, and replaced the lie with the truth. He did not walk into that temptation with the belt sitting loose around His waist. He buckled it up, and when He heard a lie, He refused to listen to the distortion.
How to Fight Lies With Truth in 3 Steps
In this life you will encounter the lies of the enemy. You will hear lies about God, lies about yourself, lies about others, and lies about the world. These lies will come up against your fears, and they will come up against your deepest desires. You will be tempted by them to go along with the patterns of this world. In every instance, it will be the belt of truth buckled around your waist that helps you stand firm (Ephesians 6:14).
So put it on. Every time you are tempted with a lie, work through three steps. First, call out the lie. Identify it, and name it for what it is. Second, identify the truth and replace the lie with it. Say what God actually says. Third, reject the lie and obey the truth, living according to what is true rather than according to what sounded convincing.
Here is what that looks like in practice. Suppose you hear a lie about God, something along the lines of: if God really loved you, He would not have allowed this thing to happen to you or to your loved one. That is a lie. Call it a lie, and then replace it with the truth. God loves you so much that while you were still a sinner, when you had still aligned your life with the enemy, He sent His Son to die so your sins could be forgiven.
The Truth Worth Living In
And if you are still not trusting Jesus, if you are still aligning your life with the enemy, if you flat out reject God, He loves you and He longs for you to come near to Him.
That is the truth. Live in it. You will not fight lies with willpower or with Bible knowledge sitting unused on a shelf. You fight lies with truth, buckled on and lived in.
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