The problem with saying there's no absolute truth is that this notion, in and of itself, implies an absolute truth, my pastor pointed out this past Sunday in a sermon.

According to a survey by Barna Research Group, Ventura, Calif., two out of three adults and four out of five teenagers in the U.S. now argue truth is relative to "the individual and the circumstances" and is based on "feelings, experience or emotion."

Moral relativism is now embraced by six out of 10 people ages 36 and higher and by 75% of adults ages 18 to 35.

"This is one of the great deceptions of our age," says the research group's founder, George Barna, in an article on the Barna website quoting the study findings. "Embracing relativism under the guise of Christian faith facilitates comfort with sin. By claiming the authority to determine right from wrong, we crown ourselves the kings and queens of reality, yet we have no such authority and we constantly pay the price for the arrogance of believing and acting like we are in control of our destiny and experience. What an affront it is to God for us to claim His name and protection but to resist His moral truths on the basis of human feelings."

From the moment Satan chose to elevate himself to creator-status, declaring, "I will be like the most High," the conflict of the ages, both in heaven and in earth, has been between the truth program of God's and the lie program of the adversary, Satan.

Jesus Christ tells us Satan "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)

He traffics in lies and the Big Lie is we're equal with God.

"He doesn't even make the creature equal with the creator, he makes the creature superior to the creator," says my pastor, Richard Jordan (Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.), in a study on tape. "It's the deification of the creature. It's what you and I do every time we walk in our self-will, exalting our will over God's will, turning to our own way, saying, 'It's my way or the highway. It's what I want, it's what I think.' Not what God says, but what I want—'I'm not going to let Him tell me what to do'. . .

"Somebody jokingly said that God created man in His own image and that man ever since 'the fall' (of Adam and Eve) has been trying to return the favor."

The very nature of sin is to challenge God's authority, or His right to be God. In what Jordan calls the "greatest single definition of sin in the Bible," Isaiah 53:6 says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

"The Psalmist said, 'The earth is the LORD's and the fulness thereof,' and I've said to people for years, 'You want to be God, just go out there onto the street and create you a universe and step into it and be God,' " says Jordan. "Let's see you do it. You'll be gone. You can't do it and therefore you can't be God. . .

"We try to build our own little reality and world. We create our little fantasy world in our mind. We try to create our little political world, our little economic world, our little social world, our little intellectual world, trying to be God.

"How do I know this? I have the empirical evidence of your conduct. You're not God. If you were, don't suck up God's air, live on God's earth—don't be a usurper. Go create your own. That's who God is—He's the creator."

Not only was Satan created perfect in beauty but he was made "full of wisdom," according to Ezekiel 28:12. Outside of the Godhead, he was the smartest creature.

The stage of the conflict has never been, "Who's got the most might?", but in Satan's deluded belief he has the most wisdom. This is, in fact, what he peddles to Adam and Eve—"Oh, I know God's more powerful, but I'm smarter."

"Satan got kicked out of the presence of God after he sinned, but, man, he had some pedigree," reasons Jordan in a taped study. "He could pull out his I.D. card and say, 'I've been places; I've walked up and down in the presence of God.' His thinking was, 'I know everything. I heard everything God said, I know everything God knows, and I got a better idea.' "

As we learn from Paul, though, Satan was "taken in his own craftiness" through Jesus Christ's crucifixion, leading to His resurrection (Editor's Note: For more on this, scroll down to "Devil Gets Punk'd," dated June 22), and what was revealed was God's manifold wisdom in a plan He kept secret since the world began. The plan is to form a new species of man in Jesus Christ, called the Body of Christ, which will regain the heavenly realm from Satan's grasp.

"Genius and wisdom belongs to God only, and not to Satan, (and) by the mere keeping of this secret God manifested not only Satan's lack of sufficient and essential wisdom, but also the fact that it is completely inappropriate for him to even entertain the thought of being 'like the most High,' " writes Bible scholar Keith Blades, in his book, "Satan and His Plan of Evil."

"What God kept 'hidden' in Himself was completely unfathomable and incomprehensible to Satan and his co-horts, who think of themselves as being as wise as God. God took them in their own conceits, manifesting the matchlessness of His own wisdom, as well as providing for Him to bring to nought 'the princes of this world.' "

Editor's Note: To be continued soon. . .