Jesus-Did He Lie To Us?

Jesus—Did He Lie To Us?

7/8/2001 GNLCC John 5:16-23 1 John 5:1-12

There was a movie in which two men were held as prisoners of war in the same cell during the Civil War. The interesting thing was that they were almost identical in appearance. The one man was poor, kind, and a drifter. The other man whose name was Somersby, was abusive, cruel, and from a wealthy family in the south. During their time in prison, the poor man enjoyed listening to Somersby talk about his family, his town, his friends and more. He got to the place where he could tell the stories as well as Somersby could. Eventually Somersby, the abusive man died in prison, and the nice guy decides to claim his identity. He goes back to the Somersby’s home town hoping to get everybody to believe he’s Somersby.

He learns that his father has died, and all the slaves are free. His wife strongly dislikes him, and has him sleep in another room.. The only one who knows that he is not really who he claims to be is the dog. But he tells the former slaves and hirees, that if they work for him, he would give them all part of the land. At first nobody wants to trust him, because they knew of his reputation of being a cheater and swindler. But his nice personality wins them over, and even the woman who is supposed to be his wife falls in love with him. Everybody is one happy group on the huge farm, until somebody thinks nobody can change as much as this guy does.

One person goes on a vendetta to prove this guy is a fraud. Everybody on the plantation stands by the man they think is Somersby, insisting he is the real Somersby. They know instantly that if this man were proven to be a fraud, they would lose everything, because he would not have been the true heir to the farm. They stand behind him, wife, children, and all the workers.

But then, one day federal marshals show up to arrest Sommersby for a murder the real Sommersby had committed in Louisiana and was scheduled to be hanged for it. A trial is held to determined if Sommersby is real or is he a fake. If he tells the truth during the trial, he can go a free man, but all his friends would lose all that they had. If he lies and continues to pretend Sommersby, they keep everything but he will be immediately hung by a rope. What would you have done if you were the guy pretending to be Sommersby?

Even though all those people wanted him to be the real Sommersby, and many believed in their heart that he was, the truth is, he was not who he claimed to be. We can recognize that even though he did some good for the people, they were not entitled to the property he had given to them, even though they worked for it, because it was not his to give.

All of Christianity hinges upon one issue and one issue alone. Did Jesus Christ lie to us? Now most people do not think of Jesus as a liar. Even people who are not Christians will not argue that Jesus went around telling lies to people. They will say that Jesus was a good moral person who went about helping others. The only problem is that what we think Jesus said, and what Jesus actually said are not in agreement with each other. Our problem is not rooted in Jesus speaking in a mysterious language which is hard to understand. Our problem is we simply do not take the time to read the bible. As a result, we can be tossed back and forth by the many different philosophies that came our way.

There is a gospel according to the world that goes like this. If you are nice and kind to others, respect everybody and do the best you can, you will make it to heaven. The tragedy is that this is what many who claim to know Christ believe. The world likes this gospel because it allows us all to be one happy big planet. Nobody judges anybody, and everybody is accepted. The true god of today’s age is tolerance.

Everybody’s position is of equal value, and noone can claim to have something better than someone else. The goal is not truth, but rather whatever works for you. Now people who preach tolerance of welcoming everybody, is happy with everybody except with those who disagree with them. Anybody who disagrees is prejudiced, bigoted, narrow minded, and hateful.

If we look at Jesus, and what he really said, based on our society’s standard, Jesus was prejudice, bigoted, narrow minded and hateful. Can we put our faith in such a person? Let’s look at how Jesus was prejudiced. One day he was talking with a woman from Samaria. Their discussion turned to religion, and this woman wanted to impress Jesus with how her people worshiped God.