Sermons - Love Bible Church

	LOVE
	Bible Church
	Madison, Tennessee

The Father of Lies

Sermon delivered by Thor Carden

Early 2003

Love One Another Gospel Church

Madison, Tennessee

Please turn to John Chapter 8.

Last time I spoke here I talked to you about the big lie Satan was able to get Adam and Eve to believe and all destruction and misery that has followed. I spoke about how we still believe the lie that we could be like God and it still leads to misery and death. I promised that next time I spoke it would be about the other lies Satan tells us. I am here this morning to keep that promise. My topic today is "The Father of Lies."

In John 8:31-47 Jesus has a discussion with a number of Jews about their heritage, the truth, and believing the truth. In verse 44 He says, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He 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.

And in verse 47 He says, "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God."

Let us pray.

Please turn to Matthew Chapter 4.

Some of you may remember last summer when I was teaching Sunday school I made the point that we know God is good because good is stronger than evil. I gave several examples of it. Well, here is another example - the truth is more powerful than a lie. Let me explain. If I tell you that staying out in the sun too long without sun block will cause you to be burned and you believe me, and use sun block, or stay in the shade then I all is well. If on the other hand, you decide not to believe me, and you stay out unprotected, then you will burn. Such is the power of the truth.

On the other hand if I lie to you and say that if you stay out in the moonlight too long you will be burned unless you buy this special moon block lotion I'm selling if you believe me and buy it I have stolen from you. On the other hand if you do not believe me nothing happens.

See how that works? The truth has power regardless of what you believe. If you put your faith in the truth it has the power to help you, in this case, keep you from being burned. If you ignore the truth it has the power to hurt you, in this case, you are burned. On the other hand a lie only has power if you put your faith in the liar. If you do not believe a lie, it is powerless. In order for evil to have any power it must have some good mixed with it. Without your faith, a good thing, the evil lie is powerless. A sick, ugly, thing squirming on the floor.

[Skip if time is short - Please turn to Luke 22.

Satan and his demons can do nothing to you without God's permission. Evil has no power without good. Remember how in Job chapter 1 Satan and the Lord are discussing Job and before Satan can do anything to Job he has to get God's permission? The same sort of thing apparently happened to Peter.

Luke 22

30 That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

It sounds like Satan had to get permission before those three people were allow to accuse Peter of being with the Lord putting him in the position of denying Christ three times. It gives a feeling of security to know that I am protected from Satan's power. I do not think this is so with Satan's lies. Please turn to Matthew chapter 4. I believe because lies have no power Satan is free to use them as much as he likes.

End Skip]

Please turn to Matthew 4. I want to spend a few minutes looking at the three lies Satan tried to get Jesus to believe when he was tempting him in the wilderness.

Matthew 4

1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

[This is one of the three things the devil wants from us. He wants us to take pride in ourselves; focus on our own desires instead of submitting to God's will. Here the lie takes the form of a dare and an appeal to hunger. Doesn't he do the same to you? How many times have you been tempted to do something wrong to get something your desired? Have you ever felt like telling a lie to cover up a mistake you have made? Have you ever told someone, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know, or I forgot" when really you just thought you could get a way with it? Pride. Pride. Believing your desire to avoid shame is more important than not doing shameful things. How did Jesus answer this temptation?]

4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. [This is a quote from Duet 8:3]

[In fact, Jesus answers all three temptations with scripture.]

5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. [The devil is quoting from Ps 91:11-12, a Messianic Psalm. This is the second of the three things the devil wants from all of us. He wants us to do self destructive things. He wants to kill us. Also, notice even though the devil actually quotes scripture here, it is scripture out of context. If you read a little further in Psalm 91 it says in verse 14, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." The protection is promised to the coming Messiah for the sake of love, not as a sign or miracle for Him perform. Have you ever put your conscience in neutral and went ahead and bought it, or accepted it, or ate it, even when you knew it was bad for you? But Jesus knows the scriptures very well, as the author should, of course. He does not believe the lie. Let us see His answer. Continuing in verse 7]

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. [Here Jesus is quoting Duet 6:16]

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. [This is the third thing the devil wants from us, he wants us to worship him instead of God. What a miserable creature he must be -- hating us and yet desiring our love. Here, you, as I did when I first read this, are probably thinking here at least is one temptation you are not tempted by. No, we are not tempted to worship Satan directly but there is a dark, Satanic, seductive, philosophy that has become pervasive in our society. It comes from mystical Eastern philosophies based on the concept of yin/yang. The idea is that there is war between Evil and Good in the universe and these things are somehow equal, giving a sort of balance to nature. This lie, like many lies, has just enough truth to it, to make it seem reasonable. There was a war, but it is already over. Jesus fought it on the cross and won it at the resurrection. It is true there is still some little pockets of resistance and some enemy strongholds to be dealt with but the final victory is not in doubt. The rest is just a mop up operation. Evil is not an equally powerful dark side of good. Evil is a pathetic weak little thing without any power at all without good in it. Hollywood, the media, indeed our entire culture seem to want us to believe otherwise. They would have you believe that having a dark side is a natural thing and that we should just accept this in each other and not hold anyone accountable for anything. Yes, I do still have a fleshly body full of lusts and error but that is not acceptable to me. I should be like Jesus. Yes, we make mistakes, but we should be accountable for them and clean up the messes we make and accept the consequences of our own actions and decisions -- not try to weasel out of them.]

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. [This is from Duet 6:13] Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

By the way, I borrowed a lot of what I am saying today from a book called "The Lies We Believe" by Chris Thurman (for the reader ISBN: 0785263772)

So the devil tempted Jesus three times with three lies similar to these:

(1) You are just as good as God and you deserve to have all your desires fulfilled.

(2) God is supposed to protect you from all harm and difficulties no matter how stupid you act.

(3) It is natural for you to have evil in you, and you are not responsible for it. Others should accept you for who you are.

Lies, all lies!

(1) God alone is good and you and I deserve the death penalty. (Luke 8:19, Rom 5:12)

(2) God does not owe us anything but "he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (Rom 9:20-21, John 3:16)

(3) God made us in his image. Our natural state is goodness. When we are saved he replanted the seed of goodness in us. Over our lifetime we will watch God bring His goodness to maturity in us. The Holy Spirit will cause us to bear spiritual fruit. When we die He will gather us to Heaven to live with him forever. (Gen 1:27. Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:9-13, Phil 1:6, Gal 5:9, Eph 5:9, John 14:2-3)

That's the truth. Keeping the truth in mind lets take a look at other forms these lies of Satan can take:

[SKIP AS MUCH AS NEEDED TO END IN A TIMELY WAY]

True or False? In order to have God's love and blessings you must be without sin.

Almost true but false. Covered with the blood of Jesus God sees us as perfectly sinless. 1 John 1:7, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

True or False? You have done evil and you must be punished severely.

Again, almost true but false. Jesus has already been punished terribly in your place. 1 Jn.1:9 - "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

The conscience that God gave us is intended to bring us to repentance not keep us wallowing in guilt.

True or False? As a good Christian you should never feel angry, anxious, sad, or depressed. Your faith must be weak. You should be happy and optimistic.

Nope, it is a lie. All these emotions were placed in us by God and should be felt at the appropriate time. Remember Jesus's anger at the money changers and at the fruitless fig tree. Recall His anxiety as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane? Remember how he wept when he was talking with Mary & Martha about the death of Lazarus? Jesus is human and so are we.

Mt.21:12, Mk.11:15, Jn.2:15, Mt.26:38, Jn.11:35

True or False? Unless your are strong in the Spirit, God can not use you.

Many wonderful people have talked themselves out of Christian service with this lie. Many others are reluctant to witness because they believe they must first be a perfect Christian example. Let's compare two lists - List one: bigamy, drunkenness, incest, murder, adultery, and lies. List two: Abraham, Judah, David and Solomon. The first list is the sins committed by the patriarchs and kings in the second list who were all used mightily by God.

1 Corinthians 1:27 "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty"

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