According to Jn 8:44 there is no truth in the devil; he is a liar. Jesus, on the other hand, said “I am the truth”, Jn 14:6. And about the Bible, Jesus prayed in Jn 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth”. So, we’re going to study how the devil handles truth to see his methods of deception.
He Misquotes or Misapplies Scripture
Misquoting scripture is one of the most common ways the devil handles truth.
Have you ever heard anyone say, “God will never give you more than you can handle”? That’s not the correct quotation of 1 Cor 10:13. God will often give you more than you can handle, but he’ll make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.
By misquoting this verse, people generally come away with one of two thoughts. Either they think something is wrong with them because they couldn’t bear up under the weight of the burden. Or they think something is wrong with God for giving them more than they could handle. And they get frustrated with themselves or mad at God. Either way, the devil succeeds.
Misapplying verses is also a common way the devil handles scripture.
Jer 29:11 is often quoted to give people the impression that God has plans for their success, prosperity, and well-being. This verse is misapplied to Christians as a promise of good fortune.
Actually, if you read the context (Jer 29:10-14) this verse applies specifically to Israel at the end of the Babylonian captivity. God planned for them to return to Judah and Jerusalem.
Matt 7:1 is often misapplied to keep you from judging, according to the scripture, the doctrinal error you find in Christians who have been misled by false doctrine. Sometimes they’ll even misapply Mark 3:29 and accuse you of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost when you point out that their Charismatic gift is not of the Lord.
He Fails to Rightly Divide
According to 2 Tim 2:15, we are to rightly divide the word of truth. The devil will often lead people to believe something that is not true about a verse by failing to rightly divide it.
In Acts 2:16-17 for example, there are people who believe that young men see visions and old men dream dreams today by the Spirit of God.
This passage that Peter quoted from Joel 2:28-32 has nothing to do with the church age. It is specifically in the context of the second coming of Jesus Christ, Joel 2:27 and 32. Picking up on the pouring out of God’s Spirit, though, Peter preached out of this passage to get to his sermon text, “whosever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. That’s what he preached and about three thousand souls were saved that day, Acts 2:41.
He Disobeys Scripture:
In 1 Cor 14:27-28, 34 you find God’s rules governing speaking in unknown tongues. The Holy Spirit would never violate these rules. He guides us into all truth because he is the Spirit of truth, Jn 16:13.
Yet, the way the devil handles truth, he will get people to disobey it. These rules are regularly broken in nearly every church where tongues are spoken. People justify their disobedience by elevating their experience over truth.
The tongues in Acts 2 needed no interpreter. Every man heard the apostles speak in his own language. The tongues in 1 Cor 14 did need an interpreter because the person was speaking a language unknown to the others in the congregation. They couldn’t understand. I preached with an interpreter in Réunion Island and Thailand recently.
He Lifts Scripture Out of its Context
2 Tim 2:12, for example, says “if we deny him, he also will deny us”. Clearly from the context of 2 Tim 2:10-13, we see that he denies a reign to those who deny him. See also Rom 8:17-18.
People who lift this portion of 2 Tim 2:12 out of its context use the verse to teach that you can lose your salvation, despite the fact that the verse has nothing to with losing your salvation. Verse 13 says, “he cannot deny himself”.
He Quotes Half a Verse
When you put a period in Eph 1:4 after the word “world”, you can teach Calvinism. But the verse doesn’t end in the middle. And thus it is a lie to say that God chose from the foundation of the world whom he would save and whom he would condemn.
The way the devil handles truth, he will often lead people to quote only half a verse to teach a lie, rather than the truth of the whole verse.
Conclusion: These are just a small sample of the many verses that the devil has taught people to use incorrectly. Thus, they change “the truth of God into a lie”, Rom 1:25. Watch out for these tricky twists of the truth.