Category: Does God Lie?

Here’s another fabulous example of Atheist superficiality in response to my post of this passage:

But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me

( Psalms 22:19 )

A troll posted:

And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.

( Matthew 21:17 )

So Jesus spent a night without his entourage in Bethany and a troll uses that as an example of a contradiction in scripture. Jesus saw his disciples the very next morning. Besides that, Psalms 22 was written before the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ, and is referring to the Spirit of God.

That’s what you have to do to be an atheist folks.

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

( John 14:11-14 )

John 14:11-14, is not an example of God lying, it is a quote of Jesus explaining the Spiritual and physical relationship he has with God the Father. God the Father is an eternal mind who conceived all things; God the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, his mode of action in the world; God the Son is the physical manifestation of God, the Word of God, the Word made flesh, the lamb slain from the beginning of the world, the one through whom all things were made, the deep, who was with God in the beginning.

God is in Jesus because God made the world by Him. Jesus is in God because the world was made from Him. This is literally true as it pertains to the physical makeup of the universe.

We can have the power that Jesus manifested on earth when we are perfectly aligned with God’s will. This passage is not to be taken that I may ask God for a new Mercedes and the fact that I don’t have a new Mercedes means that God is a liar. I don’t need a Mercedes in order for me to do the work that God has assigned for me on earth. On the other hand, if I go to God to ask how to reconcile Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion with what the Bible teaches us about the solar system he shows me, through the Holy Spirit. There is another passage like this which is very specific:

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 

( Matthew 17:20 )

Why don’t we see mountains moving around? Is God a liar?

The key to understanding this is the phrase: “If ye have faith.” Faith in what? Faith that God will do whatever I want? Or is it faith that God is going to do whatever HE wants? If we have faith that God’s will is going to be done, and because of our diligent study of His Word it is possible to deduce what that will is, then we come into alignment with His will such that, as he is carrying it out anyway, we are aware of it unfolding. We may also be so attuned to it such that we may anticipate it. As such, if we ask for it, we will see it come to pass.

One practical example is that God has promised to provide my every need. I had to get my car inspected but I couldn’t afford any repairs. I am in God’s will right now and the car passed the inspection without needing any repairs. As I was praying to God and asking for Him to provide for the car to pass the inspection, I deduced and concluded that no repairs would be necessary because I didn’t have any money to pay for them. When I got the call from the shop to tell me to come pick the car up I wasn’t surprised.

God’s will doesn’t require any mountains to be moved right now, therefore it is not possible for anyone to be aligned with His will such that they may move a mountain. However, if I am convinced that the Bible is true because God said it is, and Psalms 19 tells us that the sun is orbiting the earth, then I go to God to ask for the understanding of it. I need the sun to be less massive than the earth in order for Psalms 19 to be possible, to be literally true. The Holy Spirit teaches me how to use Kepler’s laws and Newton’s law of gravity to show that the sun is indeed less massive than the earth. The sun is a lot larger than a mountain (even if it is smaller than the earth). I just moved the sun from the center of the solar system to being in orbit around the earth. As far as I am concerned this passage is literally true because I just moved more than a mountain. I was able to do this because the need to do it is in alignment with God’s will, and I asked for it.

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

( John 8:44 )

God is not lying in this passage, Jesus is making it very clear that the father of all lies is Satan.

Attempting to make the case that this is an example of God lying gets complicated. Trying to make this into a lie requires saying that Jesus is falsely accusing Satan of lying, but since, technically, Satan would have to be real in order for this to matter then the atheist has chosen to believe that the Bible is authoritative in order to make the claim.

Why would an atheist accept the Bible as authoritative? This is a level of confusion that the reprobate mind will sink to that is basically depravity. Anything goes, even citing the Bible as authoritative in order to say that the Bible is false.

The atheist is facultatively applying authoritative status to the Bible for the purpose of making the case that the Bible is inconsistent.

Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.

( John 7:8-10 )

John 7:8-10, is only a lie if you omit the word “yet,” from the translation. Many modern Bible translation do indeed omit this word. This is not an example of God lying, but it is a perfect example of why you should be studying the King James Version, and not a version of the Bible which has been based on the use of corrupted texts.

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

( Matthew 16:28 )

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

( Mark 9:1 )

But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

( Luke 9:27 )

Yet again this comes with no explanation as to WHY it is a lie. In each case, however, the very next sentence begins a description of the transfiguration, when Peter, James and John saw Jesus in his true glory and meeting with Moses and Elijah. Peter, James and John did not have to die to see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom.

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

( Matthew 12:40 )

This one, like the others, doesn’t come with any explanation of exactly WHY it is a lie. I can only conclude that the reason is that the traditional Good Friday and Easter celebrations have Jesus crucified on the cross on Friday, in the grave Friday and Saturday night, then he rises from the grave Sunday morning. Technically speaking this means that Jesus was in the grave only two nights, not three.

The resolution is quite simple: the Bible is right, the Christian calendar is wrong. Humans are great at rationalizing things, and it fits everyone’s schedules much better if the Easter celebrations start on a Friday night. If we stick with the premise that God cannot lie and the Bible is true (which we are seeing very clearly now) then obviously Jesus was crucified on Thursday night.

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.

( Jeremiah 4:10 )

O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.

( Jeremiah 20:7 )

Neither one of these passages are examples of God lying. They are both examples of the Prophet Jeremiah crying out in anguish of spirit because reality fell short of his unrealistic expectations. In the former passage the situation was that God had promised, repeatedly throughout the history of the Israelites and again in the ministry of Jeremiah, that:

If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.

( Jeremiah 4:1 )

However, despite what may have seemed like an enthusiastic response to Jeremiah’s preaching, the people did not put away their abominations and they suffered the consequences that God warned them about. Jeremiah was bitterly disappointed, but God had not lied.

The latter passage again shows Jeremiah’s disappointment and confusion. He had anticipated that the people of his time would respond to his repeated warnings and preaching about the judgment of God by turning back to God in repentance. They didn’t, and they threw Jeremiah in jail.

God did not lie. God didn’t promise Jeremiah that his ministry would be fruitful, he told him to minister.

I have always been mindful of these passages while starting the ministry of Matty’s Paradigm. Jeremiah’s ministry took place at the very end of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, right before and up to the taking away into captivity. Jeremiah made an heroic effort to preach repentance to the people in the hope that this outcome could be avoided. They didn’t listen. They were carried off to Babylon. In large part due to this I am fully prepared to see the ministry of Matty’s Paradigm fall on dead ears. Are we not in the last days of this current world system? Is there not now a need like never before to return to the Lord? Will the people listen?

NO.

Thankfully, the passion and devotion of Jeremiah serve to strengthen my resolve to continue my ministry.