Dan Brown has done it again. And I mean really done it. The Lost Symbol has received huge amounts of publicity and has been highly promoted, largely due to the overwhelming success of The Da Vinci Code, and the surrounding controversy.

The Lost Symbol promises to be no different. It’s already sold over a million copies, and that’s just on its first day of sales!

At the very front of the book, just before the Prologue begins, Dan Brown makes a statement very similar to the one found in The Da Vinci Code. He says that there is a cryptic document locked away in the personal safe of the director of the CIA that has Masonic implications. Is this true? Hard to tell. Brown also states that all organizations mentioned in this novel exist, as well as all rituals, science, art and monuments. Ok, easy enough to verify.

But what he doesn’t say is crucial: This is a fictional story. While the setting and locale are based in reality, the simple truth is this: This story is just that, a story. It is fiction. It is the product of Dan Brown’s (very creative) imagination. Just like The Da Vinci Code. But so many people read his fiction, and are convinced that it is real. We need to wake up and take a look around us. We need to stop accepting the truth of a statement, simply because it is in print.

The story itself is gripping, though. I have to admit, I’ve read all of Dan Brown’s novels. He is a very talented author. He spins a tale full if intrigue and suspense. I had a hard time putting down The Lost Symbol, or any of his other works. The story is well written. Brown has achieved literary excellence, in that regard at least.

However, his fiction contains highly inflammatory and controversial elements. If you remember that these are simply part of the plot of the fictional story, you’re ok. But if you start to believe that these statements are true glimpses of a dark and hidden reality, you’ve stepped out of the world the rest of us live in and entered Dan Brown’s fictional realm.

The Lost Symbol contains several of these un-truths. And I’m convinced that these reflect the author’s own opinions, since they can be found to varying degrees in most of his other books as well.

Some of these frightening deceits include: We have the potential to become gods. We have the capacity with our own minds to harness the cosmic power of the universe and make our own reality, and hence or own morality. Jesus was nothing more than a man who had harnessed the full power of his mind. And all world religions essentially speak the same truth: that we make our own destiny, and once we reach enlightenment, we become gods.

Brown claims that the Freemasons are the protectorates of these frightening “truths” and will one day allow them to be revealed to the world, which will cause the Apocalypse (which he defines as “unveiling” or “revealing”) and usher us into a new age, a new era, of Enlightenment.

The Lost Symbol is frightening at best. Downright terrifying at worst.

Not because of what he claims is in the near future for humankind. But because of the twisted web of deceit that he has spun. And the fact that so many people are going to buy into this as truth.

The Lost Symbol is full of twisted lies and untruths. I lost count of how many times he “quoted” Scripture, only to look up those passages for myself and see how he had twisted the words around to say something completely different than what was actually there.

And if he misquoted and misrepresented the Bible, which I know and trust intimately and implicitly, I can only guess that he misquoted and misrepresented the texts of other major world religions (not that they are true anyway…).

Dan Brown has effectively removed God from his throne and set ourselves up in His place. He leads us to conclude that we don’t need God, because, we are, in fact, God ourselves.

This is blatantly the opposite of biblical reality. And we have been faced with this temptation since the very beginning of time, in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge, being told by the deceiver that “in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

We have been faced with the temptation to become “like God” ever since. Mankind has struggled to lift ourselves up and take the place of our Creator ever since that fateful day in the Garden.

The Lost Symbol takes us right down that same unfortunate road. And instead of helping us to draw closer to God and become more like Him, Dan Brown has taught us (once again, like so many other examples in human history) to draw away from God, dethrone Him, and become Him.

As I finished reading The Lost Symbol, I was almost physically sick; distraught over the fact that so many people will be led further astray by this hugely over-popular author. Dan Brown has displayed the capability to sway the opinions (or solidify the defiance) of millions of people with The Lost Symbol. And he has the potential to destroy the faith of countless people who don’t know the truth of God’s Word very well. God’s Word says that Dan Brown will one day be held accountable for the false teachings he has propagated within his stories. My prayer is that he leaves this path that he is on, and turns in a new direction, one that leads him closer to the ultimate Storyteller.

Lord, help us to speak Your Truth to a lost and confused world. Lord, help us to the Your Word for what it is, Your love letter to us, sharing Your desire to save us and bring us into a right relationship with You.

Lord, help us to seek You, and not seek to become You.