Satan is a Liar - How to Defeat the Father of Lies

by Kristen Neighbarger

I never thought I would find myself in the middle of a divorce.

Having grown up in the evangelical church, I wholeheartedly believed that if I married a Christian, the rest would be smooth sailing, that God would swoop down into the middle of my marriage and create eternal, everlasting bliss.

I was wrong.

And so it was that I found myself in the middle of a hellish divorce; listening to and believing the words of that liar, Satan.

During this time, it wasn’t unusual for my brain to work at hyper-speed at all hours of the day and night.

Some nights, I would wake up in the wee hours of the morning, and my mind would grab ahold of a thread and pull and pull on it until it completely unraveled.

Contents

Lies Satan Tells

Although I tried desperately to keep my brain from actually getting ahold of one of these threads, more often than not, I found myself awake for hours spiraling into the depths of thoughts I should have never been having–thoughts that spoke lie after lie to my soul:

You’re not good enough.
You’ll be in debt forever.
You’ll never get on your feet again.
No one will ever love you again.
You are a disgrace.
You are unworthy of God’s love and grace.
You’re a failure.
You’re weak.

Night after night, lie after lie filled my mind until I was completely sleep-deprived and utterly distraught–no longer capable of believing or even seeing my own worth.

Have you been there, friend?

Have you faced situations where you find your thoughts being overrun with negativity and lies?

Or, maybe it isn’t that your mind is completely overrun with a litany of lies, but instead, it’s just one lie that is constantly there in the back of your mind that you can’t seem to shake no matter how hard you try:

You aren’t as smart as your coworker.
You’ll never be as good of a mom as your sister.
You’re fat and unattractive.
You never have any good input at meetings.
Your life doesn’t matter.
You’ll never be successful.
You’re a failure.

Take heart, friend.

These thoughts, these lies that are crippling you, are not from God.

They aren’t truth.

They are lies created by Satan, by the father of lies himself, for the purpose of stealing, slaughtering, and destroying.

Thankfully, those lies aren’t the end, and we have a Father and the Truth that can conquer those lies.

Characteristics of Satan

If you have been in the church long, no doubt you are familiar with Satan, even though sometimes people have a fear of talking about him.

While I can understand the hesitation, the best generals will tell you the most important thing in war is knowing your enemy, and Satan has been our enemy since the beginning of time.

We see his presence and influence from the time of Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 3, we learn that “The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made (verse 1 (MSG)). From the first encounter Eve has with Satan, we learn that he is clever–more clever than any animal God created.

Satan’s conversation and deception are evident in this fateful story from Genesis.

“Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”

The woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”

The serpent told the woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
Genesis 3:1-5 (MSG)

As Satan tends to do, he distorted reality for Eve as he was talking to her–convincing her that she wouldn’t die if she ate from the tree, even though God had specifically instructed her and Adam not to eat from that tree.

{Related: (Im)Perfect: The Deceived Heart}

While the result was not instantaneous death, the result of the sin introduced with this act of disobedience would be, in fact, eventual death.

This is what Satan does.

He distorts the truth.

He seeks destruction.

He aggressively slaughters.

He destroys.

John tells us, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life (John 10:10 (NLT)).”

Satan is the thief John is referring to, a thief who desires to:

Steal our joy
Slaughter all the good things in our life
Destroy our souls
Steal our peace
Slaughter our relationships
Destroy our faith
Steal our confidence
Slaughter our patience
Destroy our ministries

Do you see a theme here?

Satan destroyed the peace Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden by luring them into sin and filling their heads with lies; his desire is to do that same thing to us using whatever means necessary. Despise him yet? Good! Share on X

Satan is the Father of Lies

One of the most prominent weapons Satan has used historically and continues to use in our lives today is the weapon of lies.

In fact, Satan is nothing more than a master of deception; John tells us he is the “father of lies.” In the book of John, Jesus is speaking to the Jews who couldn’t understand that God was their Father because they were caught up on the fact that Abraham was the father of Israel. Jesus tells them:

“For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
John 8:44 (NLT)

Those are some strong words.

In that one verse, Jesus makes these statements about Satan:

He never stood with the truth.
He is full of nothing but lies.
Lying is his native tongue.
He is a liar.
Not only is he a liar, he is the father of lies.

That’s five different statements referring to the nature of Satan and his use of lies in two sentences!

Proof that Satan is a Liar

That isn’t the only time Satan is referred to as a liar.

This is a consistent theme throughout scripture.

When Paul was writing to the church in Corinth, he addressed this very issue. Paul writes:

“I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted, and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ–in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake’s clever lies.”
2 Corinthians 11:3 (GNT)

Paul feared that the church in Corinth was going to lose its devotion and love for Christ because their thoughts were going to be corrupted by the enemy’s clever lies.

Keeping in mind John 10:10, and knowing that Satan is a thief who wants to steal, kill, and destroy, it probably comes as no surprise that he would use clever lies to attempt to destroy the faith of the Corinthians and, subsequently, the church of Corinth.

His schemes didn’t end with Adam and Eve or the church in Corinth, though.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says:

“Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but agains evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:11-12 (NLT)

Paul’s description here is that of a battle we are in, one in which the Father of lies is our opponent.

This advice to the Ephesians should serve as advice to us, as well. We ought to:

Protect ourselves against the strategies of the accuser.
Understand that our hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings.
Our fight is against the evil spirits and demon-gods that hold the world in bondage.

{Related: “The Armor of God – An Introduction“

We are in a battle–a battle with a liar who is seeking to destroy us!

Now that you’ve seen some proof from the Bible that Satan is a liar, can you identify any proof in your own life of the enemy’s clever lies?

How to Defeat the Father of Lies

At first glance, this might seem daunting and hopeless.

Thankfully, we have a Creator and Father who is also a Victor.

We don’t have to fall prey to the father of lies himself or the lies he tells us because we have a Savior who is Truth!

We are fortunate to stake our claim on this promise in the book of John:

“Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.'”
John 14:6 (NIV)

While Satan is the father of lies, Jesus Himself is Truth.

While Satan wants to steal, kill, and destroy, the end of John 10:10 (NKJV) tells us that Jesus has come “that [we] may have life, and that [we] may have it more abundantly.” In the NLT, it says Jesus’ “purpose is to give [us] a rich and satisfying life.”

That is the definition of hope that should destroy the lies Satan is telling us. Jesus’s desire is to:

Give us life.
Give us an abundant life.
Give us a rich and satisfying life.

That abundance and life that God wants for us is possible for all of us. We don’t have to be slaves to Satan’s lies. James 4:7-8 (NLT) instructs us to:

“…humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.”

We have the promise that if we surrender to God and stand up to the devil, resisting him, he will flee from us!

Keep in mind, though, that we must first submit to God in humility. When we focus solely on God by choosing to willingly obey Him, Satan has no chance to fool us with his lies.

One way we can make God our focus is to become intimately familiar with His character and promises. Knowing who God is and what He has promised us gives us truth with which to fight Satan’s lies.

What attributes of God’s character or promises He has given can help you fight the lies you’ve been believing?

{Related: “Be More Than a Conqueror w/ These 7 Tips!“}

Silencing the Father of Lies

After many sleepless nights during my divorce, I was sitting in a book study of Joyce Meyer’s book Battlefield of the Mind. It was during that study that I was reminded of the story of Jesus in the wilderness and the fact that when Jesus audibly told Satan to flee, Satan had no choice but to flee, taking his lies with him.

It was a light-bulb moment for me.

I realized that I was allowing the father of lies to grab those threads in my mind and unravel them in lie after lie.

I made a decision that the next time I was woken in the night by these lies, I would audibly resist Satan and his lies and order him out of my bedroom.

Honestly, I’m pretty glad my bedroom was on the opposite side of the house of my daughter’s at this point because I probably sounded like a crazy woman as I was ordering Satan out of my house!

It worked, though.

My thoughts stilled.

Sleep came again.

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Friend, there is a spiritual battle raging around us all the time, as I hope you’ve seen through the scriptures about the devil in the Bible.

Just like Paul said, our hand-to-hand combat isn’t with humans; it’s with evil.

Thankfully, though, we have a God who goes before us, who fights our battles with us, and who has promised us if we surrender to Him, stand up to the devil, and resist him, the father of lies will flee from us.

Whatever lies Satan is choosing to fill your head with today, I pray you see them as just that–lies, and I pray you catch the courage to order him out of your head and your life for good!

Kristen is a recovering fundamentalist who believes that truth, faith, and the sovereignty of God will survive deconstruction and are absolutely critical components of healthy reconstruction. She loves literary analysis and reading scripture with an analyst’s eye. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband–Russ, daughter–Kate, faithful dog–Lucy, and her grandma’s cat–Butters (that’s a story for another day). When her parents aren’t snowbirds, they join the party in their mother-in-law suite, affectionately referred to as Cabin B.

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