Exposing Myths

Exposing Myths

Purpose: To expose some myths that plagues Christians.

1 Timothy 4:7 7Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

We’re prone to pick up and pass on myths. I know this because I have an email account. I get about 4 emails a week detailing fantastic stories that just a small amount of research will prove totally false. But people just keep picking them up and passing them on.

Exposing a myth – what are myths?

Illustration: Myths are easily accepted as truth they have been around a long time. Take the case of the spider. About 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle classified the spider as having six legs. And for the next 20 centuries everyone believed the spider had six legs. No one even bothered to count and it was any way to challenge the great Aristotle. And of course, everybody thought this is a scientific conclusion.

Well, along came Lamarck, the outstanding naturalist. He carefully counted the legs of the spider. And guess how many legs he counted? “Exactly eight”. The myth that had been taught as truth for centuries was destroyed because Lamarck bothered co count.

They are many other examples of myths, both scientific and otherwise. And people throughout history have believed them. While it may not seem all that critical to accept scientific myths, the acceptance of religious myths could have devastating consequences. In other words, in matters of personal responsibility towards God, the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, myth and truth, becomes essential.

We can all be gullible at times, can’t we? That’s how a myth starts, when we turn our critical thinking off and just accept what’s fed to us. We do this with Christianity too.

A lot of us believe different myths about God, and the church and Christianity. And why should this concern us? Because myths make us miserable. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Jesus himself said, in John 8:32 the truth will set you free.

I wish to expose some popular myths that some of us may believe to be true.

I. Sins have sizes.

A. There are lots of ways to describe sin: wrong, disobedient, and painful to God.

1. There are also ways that you can’t describe sin: big, little, major, minor, and unimportant.

VIDEO: “What is Sin?”

2. Some Christians can describe what they believe is the ’worst’ sin. It may be homosexuality, abortion, murder, divorce, or any of the so-called ’biggies’. But many of these same people are casual about co-workers who have pre-marital or even extra-marital sex. Some of them speed on the highway, some tell little white lies. Folks, a sin’s a sin. White lies rank up there with murder as far as God is concerned. Sounds crazy, I know.

3. But there is one fact that often gets missed, or conveniently forgotten: Sins have one thing in common: They can be forgiven. They can be paid for by the blood of Jesus. No one is beyond redemption.

II. The Devil and Demons don’t really exist, at least not anymore.

A. Okay, let’s think about this. You’re a Christian, so it’s a pretty fair assumption that you believe in God. But you don’t think the Devil is real? That’s like believing in up without down.

Illustration: In the movie The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey says, "The greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the world he doesn’t exist." He isn’t nearly as effective with people who are on their guard against him, so he denies his own existence.

1. And then there are some who believe angels walk among us, but not demons? Where’s the logic there?

2. The devil can masquerade as an angel of light. Truth be told, he is an angel of light (with a big ego problem.) Some of these ’new-age angels’, spirit guides, inner voices etc. are more likely demonic than angelic.

3. We live in a world that has convinced most that it is okay to play with dark – sided things because there is really no danger. We allow our children to dress up as evil beings once a year and flaunt themselves around town for Halloween because the Devil and Demons really are harmless and they really do not exist anymore.

4. Each Halloween I see little children dressed like the devil. They go out into our communities, knocking on doors looking for candy. When I see them, I think to myself, ’how sad it is that our society encourages children to dress up as Satan and other evil personalities. Don’t parents realize that Satan is real and not some sort of Halloween character?’

5. Well, unfortunately, many folks don’t believe that the devil really exists. They think he’s a figment of our imagination– simply a character from a story.