Self-Rule Results in Self-Ruin

Let me tell you a Bible story. At first you might think it childish, but if you stay with it you might find it prophetically profound.

God put Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden and told them they could eat of every tree with one exception and that was the tree in the midst of the garden. God defined what was good and what was evil.

Along came Satan, represented as a serpent, the tempter. Let the story be told as in the original.

“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3: 1 – 5).

You will be like God, knowing good and evil. A glimpse of what God is like is that He knew good from evil. Satan was telling them they would no longer need God to tell them good from evil. They could do it instead.

That is us today. Society in general is saying what is good and what is evil and it is a reversal of God’s standard.

Isaiah warned people would do so saying of them, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5: 20). Bingo!

Dan Desmarques, author of 30 Amazon bestsellers asks, “Why be human when you can be a god?” Some have settled on being a god, their god, themselves This results in a contrasting divided culture. That is where we are.

Biblically there was a convoluted day when there was no king, and “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21: 25). Today without the King of Kings ruling every person engages in self-rule based on their own personal determination of right and wrong.

There is a distinct difference between self-rule and self-control. Self-control is essential for coexistence. Biblically self-control is spoken of as a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5: 22, 23). It is the result of being Spirit (God) controlled and living by His standards of right and wrong.

Self-rule involves the individual setting the rules and doing what he or she determines is right or wrong. It is being the god of self-determined good and evil, right or wrong.

Who is your God? Candidly, is it the object you see in the mirror? Or, is He the God you see in Scripture?