Truth Series

Did anybody happen to see the news story about the 11-year-old boy from MN who was given the opportunity to win $50,000 if he could hit a hockey puck through a 3.5-inch hole? Did anybody hear about that? The good news is that the young man made the shot. He nailed it from 89 feet. The bad news is that he wasn’t the one that was supposed to make the shot. It was his twin brother Nick who was supposed to make the shot. They had this raffle at this hockey game and a drawing. Nick Smith was on the name of this ticket. Nick was outside playing so his dad encouraged Nate to take the shot. He made it and there was this big roar. They lost track that there was a switch going on there. This promotion company that set the whole thing up was ready to give out the $50,000 until they received a phone call from the parents. They informed them of the switch. The company didn’t know what to do. It didn’t matter that the company didn’t know what to do. All the parents knew and the boys knew that they had to do the right thing. That is what they did. There was a poll that followed that and a lot of public opinion. Some people felt that the company should have still given the boy the money. Others felt he shouldn’t get it because he didn’t take the shot. I thought I would take an informal survey here. How many of you think that the little boy should get the $50,000? How many think he shouldn’t get the $50,000? About half and half. It doesn’t matter what we think. All that matters is that the parents and kids felt the need to do the right thing. They did according to them what they felt was the right thing. Out of that, fruit came out of it. They didn’t get the $50,000 but the two hockey leagues got $20,000 each and the boys got scholarships. Even more importantly, they got a life lesson that is going to yield fruit for years to come long after that money would have been spent.

Today, we are going to address this idea of truth. We are going to look at it from a biblical perspective. If you have your Bibles, open up to John 8:42. We have been looking at the gospel of John. Last week, Chris addressed the first part of this particular passage. You may recall that there is this ongoing dialogue between the Pharisees and Jesus. Last week, Chris talked about the idea where Jesus told the Pharisees if you just would hold on to my teachings, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Of course, they took offense at this. We have never been enslaved to anything. We are Abraham’s descendants and God is our father. This is where we pick up the story here at John 8:42. (Scripture read here.)

There is a lot of information here. Too much to go through in one week. It starts out by Jesus letting them know that if God were really your father, you would love me because the father is the one who sent me. Then Jesus is thinking why is it that they don’t get this. He goes on to say “Why is my language not clear to you?” Why are you not getting this? Then he goes on to say “Because you are unable to hear what I say.” Keep in mind he is not talking about physical hearing. They could hear the physical words. He is talking about a spiritual discernment. A spiritual understanding. A spiritual hearing. The man without the spirit is not able to hear the words of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:14, Paul speaks of this. He says “The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” What he is saying is you don’t have the spiritual discernment. Then he goes on to say the reason you don’t have the spiritual discernment is pretty much because you have the wrong father. He goes on to say “You belong to your father, the Devil.” These are pretty strong words here. I don’t have time to go into a theology of Satan, but the bottom line is when it comes to the Devil people seem to either believe in him or not believe in him. They believe in him too much or not enough. In the introduction to “The Screwtape Letters”, C.S. Lewis writes “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to believe in their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excess of unhealthy interest in them.” We don’t want to fall in either one of those extremes. It really doesn’t matter what we think about the devil or Satan or the demons. What matters is what Jesus thought about them and whether or not Jesus believed in them. He believed in them. He would often find himself confronting them. In this particular situation, he felt that he was confronting the devil directly, at least their children. He is basically implying that they belong to the father, their devil, so they are devil children. Not only that, but that they want to carry out his desires. The underlying word here for desires has a sense of lustful, covenant, evil desires. That is what we are talking about here.