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In the late 1800s, doctors and scientists believed in something called spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation . . . the idea behind spontaneous generation was that living organisms could suddenly pop up anywhere from non-living organisms, and this pretty much explained, in the late 1800s, disease. That from out of nowhere, disease could just occur and doctors didn’t assume it was related to anything. Suddenly, a disease could pop up on skin or pop up in a person’s body. In many cases, diseases would sweep through families and communities and parts of cities and kill thousands and thousands of people.
The assumption was that these diseases just popped up and that it was random, it was providential, and in some cases, it was God’s will. And there was no investigation to determine how these diseases were related or how diseases were transmitted, because it was assumed, because of spontaneous generation, that a non-living organism could just suddenly produce some sort of living organism that would turn into a disease.
Then Louis Pasteur came along and he said no, that’s not the case at all, that there are invisible organisms that you cannot see that actually carry these diseases, and they can be carried by the wind. They can be passed on by touching someone’s skin. They can live in food. They can live on different surfaces. And that these diseases are not just cropping up randomly from non-living organisms, but there are invisible organisms, there’s an invisible world that’s impacting the visible world, and this invisible world of germs, as they would eventually be called, these microorganisms, as we would later call them, these invisible microorganisms are everywhere and you can’t see them.
And this unseen world is impacting the seen world and has the potential to destroy lives, families, communities, and create all kinds of pestilence that goes all over the world and kills hundreds and thousands of people, all because of something you just can’t see. And so he put forth what became known as The Germ Theory of Disease, The Germ Theory of Disease, the idea that invisible microorganisms [he didn’t call them that], invisible microorganisms could impact the seen world.
Well, this caught on pretty quick among this little close-knit group of the medical community he was a part of, and they began washing their hands. They began separating people from each other. They began quarantining. They began watching to see if there was a transmission from one person to another of a common disease. But many people in the medical and scientific community, and people outside the medical and scientific community, thought it was crazy. "You’re telling us that there’s something we can’t see that impacts what we can see? You’re telling us that something that’s invisible can float through the air, land on food, and infect food? That something you can’t see can float through the air and land on a person’s skin and impact . . . you’re telling me there’s something that I can’t see that could be on my skin that gets transmitted to somebody else’s skin? That there’s an invisible world, that we’re surrounded by all these invisible, living organisms that impact our visible world?" To which Louis Pasteur said, "Absolutely."
Well, nowadays, that’s not a theory. That’s an assumption, right? In fact, we all believe in germs. Everybody in this room, everybody listening to this message, we believe there’s an invisible world that impacts our visible world. That’s why all of us have a lot of this in our homes, right [hold up disinfectant wipes or spray]? We’re addicted to this. We’re addicted to this because, not only do we believe in germs, not only do we believe there’s something that we can’t see that impacts what we can see, we believe that it’s dangerous. We believe that it could be life threatening. We know now because of medical discoveries and because of what’s happened since the late 1800s that these invisible microorganisms can wipe out entire populations, and you never see it coming because there’s an invisible world of germs.
This past year, I took my family to another country and we were so committed to this. We had little bottles of hand sanitizer hanging off our children’s belts, and we wanted it so readily available that we could just kind of look at them and wink and they’d get a little squirt and keep their hands clean, because we believe in the invisible world of germs. And we know this . . . the invisible world of germs doesn’t stay invisible, because once it’s mixed at the right time with the right things on the right skin and the right environment, what’s invisible becomes very visible. And it can become dangerous. It can be dangerous. It can, in fact, be life threatening. Now, we all know that. None of us dispute that.
The rub comes in that the Bible says there’s another invisible world. There’s another invisible world that doesn’t simply impact us physically, but it impacts us relationally. It impacts our thinking. It impacts our worldviews. It impacts our attitudes. It impacts our attitudes toward morality and purity, our finances, our relationships, our marriages, how we date, how we do business, how we interact. It impacts everything about us and everything about us relationally. It can be physically life threatening. It can be emotionally life threatening. It can be relationally life threatening. It’s an invisible world and it’s all around us and impacts everything we do. And, yet, as we talk about it, some of you and some of us tend to resist this.
We’re like the people that lived in the late 1800s and said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You’re telling me there’s something I can’t see that impacts what I can see? You’re telling me there’s something I can’t see that’s all around me, that floats through the air, that can land miraculously wherever it wants to land and, suddenly, a living organism crops up because of something invisible? That’s difficult to believe."
And what we’re gonna talk about for the next few weeks is a little bit difficult to believe. But the same Bible that says, "Love one another," [we love that part] the same Bible that says, "Husbands, love your wives," [and all the wives love that part] the same Bible that says, "Children, obey your parents," [and all the parents love that part] and the same Bible that says, "You can know God by putting your faith in him," [we all love that part] the same Bible, many of those same books, say, "No, it’s not just that, there’s more." There’s an invisible world.
There’s an invisible world that impacts your visible world every single day. And you don’t need a microscope to discover it. You don’t need a microscope to see it. You know what you need? All you need is a rearview mirror, because all you have to do is look back in your life, like I’ve looked back in my life, and we’d say, "How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so confused? How could I have thought that was a good thing when, looking back, it was so clearly a bad thing? How could I have thought that was a good idea when, clearly, it was such a bad idea? How could I have been so deceived? How could things have been so twisted in my mind? How could I have been so confused? I mean, how in the world did I think that relationship was going to go anywhere? Why in the world would I think that approach to finances was gonna take me somewhere good? Why could I not see that that wasn’t a pastime, that was a pathway that led to a habit that I’m gonna deal with the rest of my life? Why could I not see it in the moment? I mean, looking back, it’s so clear to me.
"But, in the moment, when he stood there, when she stood there, when the opportunity was there, when I was alone, when I was with them, it just all made sense. But, looking back, that was crazy! I should’ve seen that coming. How could I have been so confused in my thinking? How could I have been so deceived in my thinking? How is it things got so twisted and here I am, paying the price physically, emotionally, relationally, financially for decisions I made in a moment when it’s as if I was in some kind of fog?"
And maybe you don’t need a rearview mirror; you just need a mirror, because you’re in the middle of it now. You make decisions in moments of sanity, then you go and get with a group of people or an individual or a certain environment, and it’s like . . . you lose your mind. It’s like you abandon everything you believe and, in those moments, you are so confused and your thinking is so twisted, and you talk yourself into things that you know you have no business doing. And then you come out and regain your sanity and your focus and your perspective and you look in the mirror and go, "What’s wrong with me? Why is it that I, it’s just, it’s like, it’s like . . . I lose my mind. It’s like . . . I get so confused. Suddenly, things make sense that didn’t, and things that didn’t, suddenly, they make sense. Things that are so clearly wrong in some environments, they make perfect sense in those environments, then I come out and I regret it and I have consequences, and I’m thinking, "What’s wrong with me?"
Or, if that doesn’t do it for you, you just need to look around, like all of us do at some time, to the people we love, people we want the best for, and we watch them make decisions and we think, "Why can’t you see this the way I see it? I mean, it is so clear to me and everybody that knows you that you are about to make a terrible decision." But for them it makes perfect sense. They argue their case, and their logic is so fouled up, and their thinking is so twisted, and the rest of us stand on the periphery of their lives and think, "You are going to regret . . . you may regret this for the rest of your life. What are you thinking?" But, in their world, in that little capsule in which they make decisions, it makes perfect sense.
There’s a twist. There’s a deception. There’s a way of thinking that only makes sense in the moment. And then we look back, historically, as a culture, as a people, as a country, and we think, "What were . . . how could we be so confused?" And, nationally, internationally, many times our confusion and the twist that thwarts our thinking and that confuses our thinking, it results in the deaths of people. It results in the annihilation of relationships. It results in the deaths, sometimes, of thousands and thousands of people, the persecution of people, the mistreatment of people. And we come to our senses and think, "What were we doing? How could we have supported that? How could we have thought that was the right thing to do?" It’s real simple, as we’re gonna see. The Bible answers that for us, because there’s a twist. There’s confusion. There’s a distortion of truth that’s just enough to get us in trouble, but not so much as to scare us away. And the ones behind the twist will never tip their hands so that they become too obvious, for were they to become obvious, we would see them for who they are and we would run.
But the interesting thing is that not everybody falls for this. There are people, and maybe you’re one of them, or certainly you’ve met them . . . there are people that somehow are able to navigate this minefield, navigate this culture, navigate the deception, and they just don’t make those bad decisions. They do marriage differently. They don’t buy into the culture’s definition of how you’re supposed to do what you do, and how you handle morality, and how you handle your money, and how you view the world. They just do it differently, and they’re so different. And in our moments of sanity, we think, "I want a marriage like that. I want dating relationships like that. I would like to have that kind of self-esteem. I’d like to be that secure. I’d like to be that emotionally healthy. I’d like to have those kinds of habits. I’d like to be more free like they’re free." There are people that seem to somehow navigate around it all.
But, let’s face it. They’re the exceptions. They’re not the rule, because we live in a culture that’s been twisted. And the truths that are so evident sometimes, in a room like this, in a conversation like this, once we step outside these doors back into our worlds, those truths that are so self-evident aren’t so self-evident. They’re twisted. We don’t lose all of them. We just lose enough of them to where, ultimately, we lose our way. We lose our place. We lose our perspective.
Now, as obvious as, maybe, some of that seems, Jesus gives us some real specific insight into this unseen world. And if you brought your Bible, I want you to turn to John, Chapter 8 . . . and I’ve just got to warn you . . . his explanation of this unseen world is unsettling. I guess that’s the easiest way to say it. John, Chapter 8’s an interesting chapter of the Bible. One of the most popular, famous verses in the Bible comes from John, Chapter 8: "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you," What? "Free." See, you all know that one. And politicians love that one. Everybody loves that verse. And people don’t even know where it came from, but they say, "And the truth shall make you free." That incredible verse that no one argues with, everybody loves that. If you know truth, you will be set free.
And that certainly intertwines into this conversation we’re gonna have for the next few weeks. That verse is there. The book of John also has a verse we’ve all grown up hearing, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." We’ve all heard that verse. That comes from the book of John.
There are so many great things in the book of John. There are verses that you could just love. Even if you’re not a Christian, there’s some great stuff in the book of John. But in the book of John, we find Jesus. We get Jesus’ take on this unseen world and it is very unsettling. In fact, when I read you these verses, there will be some of you who say, "Whoa, that’s where I draw the line. I’d like to be a Christian, but I’d like to not have that part, okay?" Or, "I like that I love Jesus, and let’s all love one another and go to heaven when we die, but I don’t, I don’t buy that part." And here’s what I want you to say . . . think about . . . as we move into these verses. You can’t really do that with the book of John. You can’t do that with any of the Gospels. If you love what Jesus says about the parts that are easy, you have to at least pause and consider embracing the parts that are hard.
And, I tell you, this . . . this whole subject matter . . . sometimes I could resist this, but at the end of today’s message, I’ll tell you why I don’t. Here’s Jesus’ take on the invisible world. Let me kind of set you up. It’s John, Chapter 8. Here’s what’s going on. Jesus is having a conversation with some religious leaders, and he’s far enough into his ministry, he has done so many miracles, and he’s taught so many profound things, people are kind of nodding their heads, like, "Hey, this might be the Messiah. This might be the Messiah." And the people who are standing on the periphery going, "No, I don’t think so," are the religious leaders, and they should have been the easiest to convince, because they should have known exactly what to look for in a Messiah, but they don’t like Jesus.
So, Jesus is having a conversation with them, and here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, "Look, after all you’ve seen, after all you’ve heard, do you not recognize that I come from God? After all you’ve seen me do, after all you’ve heard me say, do you still not recognize that I came from God?" And their response is, "Oh, we don’t need you to come from God. We have Abraham as our father. We’re related to Abraham. Who needs to know anything about you? If God wanted to say something to us, he would’ve said it through Moses and Abraham. We don’t need to listen to you, Jesus. You’re a false Messiah. You’re a false prophet. We don’t, we don’t think you’re from God." And Jesus says, "Look, if you were really sons of Abraham, if you were really devout followers of God and followers of Moses and Abraham, you would recognize me, because Moses knows who I am. Abraham knows who I am. God knows who I am. The problem is you guys don’t know who I am because you’re not really followers of God." So, they really get into it.
And Jesus, he just sort of takes off the gloves in these next verses and he just lets them know why they are not able to recognize him, why it is that he has done things that make it so obvious and so plain that he’s come from God and, in the face of all that evidence, they still don’t recognize that he’s from God. And he says, "Okay, guys, you’re not gonna like this. I’m about to tell you why it is you don’t recognize me."
John, Chapter 8, verse 43: We’re jumping right into the middle of this conversation. Here’s how it goes. Verse 43: "Why is my language not clear to you?" In other words, this is the summary statement. "So why is it you don’t get it? Is it because you are unable to hear what I say? Is it that you’re deaf? No, I’ll tell you why you don’t know who I am."
Verse 44, "You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire." "Hey, guys, I’ll tell you why you don’t recognize who I am. Because there is a deceiver, and he has so deceived you that, in the face of overwhelming evidence, your thinking is just twisted enough to where you take what I say and what I do and you ascribe it to something other than God. And the problem is that you are of . . . or you have been influenced by . . . you’ve been deceived by . . . you’re under the power of . . . your father, the Devil.
Now this was so offensive, because they just finished saying, "We follow our father, Abraham." Jesus is going, "Abraham ain’t your father. The Devil is your father." Whew! I mean, try to work that into a conversation sometime when somebody’s not getting it. "You, you’re under, you belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to carry out his desire." And his desire is confusion.
Verse 44, the rest of the verse: "He," now, before we look at this . . . now, at this point you could say, "Okay, okay, okay, yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, pause. Jesus is just using, Jesus is just using a figure of speech. He doesn’t mean, like, there’s a real devil, you know. Jesus didn’t believe that, okay? Jesus is just . . . he’s just using a figure of speech." Ah, that’d be easy. He goes on. "He . . ." now I’ll probably just share this with you, not everybody else . . . "He" . . . isn’t it interesting how in our culture people don’t want God to be a ’he’ anymore? But no one’s ever written a book about ’I think we shouldn’t use "he" with the Devil.’ It’s just a thought, or you can . . . God’s not masculine. Now, the Devil, let’s leave that with a "he," but God, God’s not masculine. Just a . . . just a random thought.
Okay, "He . . ." no one’s going to argue about this or redo this part of the Scripture, "He" talking about the Devil. This is tough. "He was a murderer from the beginning," talking about the garden of Eden. He’s saying, "Guys, let me just, while you’ve been talking about Abraham, let me talk, tell you about your father. Your father’s the Devil, okay? He was a murderer from the beginning. A little foreshadowing, guess what you guys are going to do to me? You’re going to take me and you’re going to kill me, and that’s understandable because your father’s the Devil and that’s what he does. Your father loves to kill people." "He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth," get this, "for there is no truth in him. When he lies," talking about the Devil, "When he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father," or the source or the originator, "of all lies."
Now, here’s what Jesus believed, and you don’t have to believe this, I’m just telling you what he believed. Jesus believed that there was actually a personality, a ’he,’ an entity, an individual, the Devil. Jesus believed that. Now, I don’t know, this may be hard for you to believe. Jesus believed it. We’ll come back around to that in a minute.
And here’s what Jesus believed about him. Jesus believed that he, his ultimate agenda, was murder, that his ultimate agenda was the destruction of human life, and that the means by which he destroyed human life was through deception. And that, somehow, as you read the rest of the Scripture, it seems that there’s a sense in that Satan or the Devil’s power has been somewhat curtailed, and we’re gonna see this in just a minute, and that his agenda has never changed, but the means by which he carries it out, he’s limited to deception.
He’s limited to distortion. He’s limited to twisting the truth, and that he has the ability and the freedom and the power to so deceive people that it results in destroying and the destruction of human life and all that is valuable to the human race--relationships, marriage, father-child, mother-child, sibling, friendship, community--all that is sacred to the human race--that Satan is against all of that and his agenda is simply to destroy all of that, and he does that through just one . . . he only has one tool . . . it’s through deception. It’s through so confusing the human mind that we think what is right is actually wrong and what’s wrong is right . . . that people do things that make absolutely no sense to anyone looking on, but it makes perfect sense to them. And at the end of the day, the end is destruction of the soul, of the heart, the relationship, maybe even the physical body.
Here another couple of glimpses into Jesus’ view on this whole thing. He says this in John, Chapter 14, verse 30--same book. He’s talking to his close guys once again and he says this, "I will not speak with you much longer . . ." Now check this out, "for the prince of this world is coming and he has no hold on me." Jesus believed . . . now this is tough and, again, please don’t come up after and say, "Hey, I’ve got a few questions. Can you fill in some gaps?"
There’s a lot about this I don’t understand, and I don’t mind going with things I don’t understand, because every Sunday when I put this little piece of plastic on my chin and I talk into it and you can hear me, I’m leaning hard into things I don’t understand. So, I don’t have a problem adopting things I don’t understand. I don’t understand this. Use it all the time. So, just because I can’t explain it doesn’t mean I don’t apply it, okay? So, this is one of those categories. Here’s what Jesus believed. Jesus believed that somehow Satan the Devil was the prince of this world, that this world, this ball of dirt, this globe that we live on, was his domain. He said, "The prince of this world is coming."
Listen to this. This is Luke, Chapter 4. This is one of the temptations of Jesus; he was tempted to do several things. Listen. Listen to these words. We talked about this a little bit when we did the Pause series, but listen to this again and through this grid. "The Devil led him" [that’s Jesus] "up to a high place." This is Luke, Chapter 4, verse 5. "The Devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world." Now, listen to this. "And he said to him, ’I will give you all their authority.’"
"Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What?"
"Yeah, Jesus, I will give you, I, the Devil, will give you, Jesus, all the authority. I will give you authority over all the world and over all the kingdoms of the world."
"Now, wait a minute. The only way you could offer that is if that’s something that was yours to offer."
"Right."
"Now, wait, wait, wait. The only way you could give me that is if it really was something you owned to begin with."
"I know. I have the authority to give you authority over all the kingdoms of the earth."
Verse 6, "And he said to him, ’I will give you all their authority and splendor for it has’" --look at this, this is in the Bible--"’for it,’" [that is, the authority over all the kingdoms of the earth] "’has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to.’"
Now, this is disturbing. And, again, I can’t fill in all the gaps, but here’s what this Scripture teaches. That you and I live on a planet, that you and I live on a globe, that you and I live on an earth that has been given to, that has been placed under the authority of, a personality, an entity, that Jesus refers to as the Devil. And that his agenda is the end of human life, and that the means by which he accomplishes that is deception.
Apparently, he has not been given control over everything in terms of what he can do, but he has been given authority, and the means that he is limited to is through deception, through a twist, through taking what was evident, that those of us who know God, to those of us who are observing nature, that to those of us who observe creation and every, every once in a while truth breaks through, and truth breaks through and light shines through, and we go, "Aha, I’m thinking, I’m starting to put it all together," and the means by which he maintains control is through deception.
Now that’s a little bit disconcerting, isn’t it? But maybe it’s helpful. Maybe it explains some things. Maybe it’s something we need to learn to factor into our struggles with temptation. Maybe, as we’re gonna see in just a minute, it’s something we need to factor into our struggles at home. Maybe it’s something we need to learn to factor into your struggle with your prodigal son or your daughter or the guy at work. Or, that weird thing where you have moments of clarity, then you have moments of insanity, then you have moments of clarity. "I know what I need to do" then it’s like you just go right out and do the opposite. "What is that? Is something wrong with me?" Or, maybe there’s an invisible world that impacts your visible world. Maybe there’s something you can’t see that impacts everything that you see.
Thirty years after Jesus did this and said this . . . and, sure enough, those men that claimed to be sons of Abraham were sons of the Devil because what did they do? They lied about Jesus and crucified him, because that’s what the Devil does. Thirty years later, the apostle Paul begins writing to Christians in Christian churches and he understands what Jesus taught and he takes all this and he writes a letter to some Christians in the book of Ephesians. And he’s talking to them about how to live their lives, and how to love their children, and how to get along in their marriages, and how to get along in business; and the whole book is so relational. Here’s what to do, here’s what not to do, and here’s what to be careful of.
And at the end of this book, here’s what he says . . . and these are verses that, if you read them in isolation, it’s kind of like "Why is that in there?" But, now, listen to these verses through this new grid. Ephesians, Chapter 6. Here’s what Paul says. He says, "I want you to put on," [Ephesians 6:11], "I want you to put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the Devil’s," what’s the next word? Say it one more time. What’s the word? "schemes." Do you know what Paul believed? The apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, he believed that there’s a Devil, there’s a personality, there’s an entity, there’s an individual, it’s a him, and he has schemes, he has a plan, he has a strategy, and it’s a real simple one. It’s ’take what’s true and twist it.’ It’s ’take what’s evident and distort it.’ It’s ’take what’s true and change it just enough to where it’s just not true enough to harm us.’ Don’t make yourself too evident. Don’t make it too obvious. Find some common ground, and then lead us astray. ’Let’s take appetites . . . those are good things . . . let’s take appetites and let’s twist them to where they become addictions. Let’s take desire . . . because desire’s a good thing . . . and let’s twist desire to where it becomes greed. Let’s take something that’s appealing . . . let’s take something that’s appealing . . . nothing wrong with something being appealing. Let’s take something that’s appealing and let’s twist it to where it becomes jealousy. Let’s take appreciation and let’s twist it to where it becomes lust. Let’s so twist peoples’ view of God that they get angry at him, make decisions based on their anger, and then blame him for the consequences of their decisions.
There’s a scheme. There’s a plan. And when you begin to factor this into what you see in the world and maybe what you experience in your life, for some of you, for some of us, there’s going to be an ’AHA’ moment. Listen to what else he says. This is so helpful. If you are in the middle of a marriage issue, if you’re in the middle of a parent-child deal, if you’re in the middle of a roommate deal, a boyfriend, girlfriend thing . . . if you’re in the middle of some kind of relational issue, listen to these next verses.
Verse 12: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood." It’s not just your husband that’s the problem. It’s not just your daughter that’s the problem. It’s not just you that’s the problem. It’s not just your boss that’s the problem. Wait a minute. Paul says, "Wait. Remember to factor this in. It’s not just what we see. There’s an invisible world that impacts what’s visible." There’s an unseen that impacts the seen. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Paul . . . wait, wait, wait. Paul, come on. You’ve said some really cool stuff in here. Paul, Paul, you’re the one that wrote the love chapter, you know, "love is patient, love is kind." I love that! We had that read at our wedding. That, that’s great! You believe in a Devil? Paul, Paul, you said some really great things. I love that thing about ’children obey your parents.’ That was great, and there was some stuff in there you said about work and, boy, you have explained some things about ’we’re justified by faith.’ Paul, you seem like such a smart guy. You believe there’s a Devil? You believe there’s, like, a Devil that has a plan and a scheme and a strategy? Paul, you’re discrediting yourself. You should just leave that part out ’cause you, you seem like a bright guy. You seem to have a lot of clues and insight into human nature. I mean, you, again, you got to write over half the Bible. You believe there’s a Devil? Paul says, "Oh, yeah, and he’s a murderer and he’s a deceiver, and the means by which he accomplishes his murder is by distorting and twisting the truth."
Now, if you listen to this whole thing, now, some of you--I know you’re listening to this and I know what you’re thinking. Some of you are thinking, "I am so glad we’re talking about this finally. Andy, I wasn’t even sure you believed in this. We hardly ever talk about this around here, okay." Some of you are going, "I’m so glad you’re talking about this because every time I read these verses, it gets so confusing to me and I don’t know, is it the Devil? And I think I might try that thing in my marriage, when I just say to my husband, ’You’re of your father, the Devil.’ I’ll just try that out and see how that works. Jesus said it!"
And then there’s another group. I want to talk to you for just a minute. Maybe this is your first time to church in a long time and you’re going, "This is exactly why I quit going . . . right here, okay." So, I want to say something to you very quickly, okay? You know, if you’re skeptical about the whole thing, I totally understand. You know why? Because it’s invisible! And besides, you have your own explanation for why people get addicted to things. You don’t need a devil to figure that out. You’ve got your own explanation as to why your ex-wife and you just could never get along. I mean . . . it went back to her. She was all fouled up before we got married and you should have seen it, da da da. I mean, you have your own explanation but, come on, let’s just be real honest for just a second. Isn’t it true that every once in a while you see something, you hear about something, you read about something, and you think to yourself, "That’s just evil. That’s just evil." In your little world of trying to explain the world--because everybody has to have a worldview that makes sense, and everybody needs to have a system where all the ends meet--in your world of trying to sort out reality in your experience, isn’t it true that every once in a while you hear about, see, read about something that is so . . . it’s just purely evil, and you don’t have any explanation. I mean, a milkman spends days planning to drive into an Amish community and go into a school and tie up little girls and shoot ten of them and kill five of them because he lost a child almost ten years ago? That’s really twisted.
How about this? A group spends years and years planning to hijack passenger jets and fly them into business buildings in New York because that’ll make God happy? That’s just twisted. I mean . . . that’s not like somebody lost his temper and shot somebody. I understand that. That’s not like somebody walked in on his wife having an affair and got mad and killed a guy. I understand that. They spent years planning, I mean, this whole time, they’re thinking all of that made perfect sense.
Years ago, Sandra and I went to Europe, to Germany, and visited a concentration camp and I remember standing there as we walked in the gate. And if you’ve ever visited a concentration camp, nobody talks. Everybody whispers. It’s just . . . it’s still . . . it’s sort of sacred . . . it’s solemn . . . it’s weird--and it’s acres. It’s just enormous acres and acres, all these barracks, and you walk through there and the thought I kept thinking was "This took incredible planning. This was a machine. This wasn’t, again, somebody got mad and did something out of anger or lost his temper. This took years of planning. This was a sophisticated, well-designed killing machine. And thousands and thousands and thousands of people thought the best thing to do is to round up Jewish people who’ve done nothing to us, steal everything they own, and systematically kill them. And let’s kill as many as we can because this will help us accomplish something good."
That’s twisted. And the nation of Germany, as a people, with their conscience, they look back on that period of their history and they’re so embarrassed, and they think, as we think as individuals, "What were we, how in the world could that make sense?" Because this wasn’t a momentary loss of sanity. This was systematic and organized. If you know anything about what happened in Rwanda, if you know anything about what’s happening right now in Darfur, genocide. Let’s just kill all the women and children and let’s just cut off the hands of the children and the arms of the children. Let’s just cut off both hands of the children. Why? Well, this is going to help us accomplish our purposes. What? Again, this isn’t just "I lost my temper." This is systematic annihilation of thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And there’s a group of people--this makes perfect sense to them. And we look back and say, "That’s horrible!" No, no, no. It’s worse than horrible. It’s twisted.
And I could go on and on and on and on. Child pornography? What? Yeah. Child pornography? What? That makes sense? That’s an industry? What? Child prostitution? I mean, we could go on and on and on and on, and most of us live in a culture where it’s a picture on the news. It’s a blip. It’s a moment. Hey, let me tell you what. You just pick any one of those and you drill down deep, and then you explain it without a devil. You explain it without a schemer. You explain it without a deceiver. And yeah, it’s hard, and yeah, I don’t know all the answers, but when I just pause long enough to look at any one of many things in our culture, in our world, in our country, hey, hey, we are related to people that thought slavery was a good idea. And we look back and go, "What?" That’s twisted. And all of these end up in the destruction of human life.
Jesus says, "I told you 2,000 years ago. He’s a murderer and he accomplishes it through deception, and he will not tip his hat to his existence because he doesn’t want to overplay his hand," but there’s an invisible world that impacts our visible world every single day. And it’s why I, as a somewhat rational human being, lean hard into the teachings of Jesus. It’s why I pray for me and my family every day, "Keep falsehood and lies far from me. Keep falsehood and lies far from us. Keep falsehood and lies far from me." It’s why I pray every day, "God, please help me to see as you see. I just want to see as you see, not through the lens of culture, not through the lens of deception, not through the lens of my emotions. I want to see the world like you see it."
Because there’s a deceiver and there’s a twister, and I don’t fear what he will do to my physical body, and I don’t fear that he’s going to show up in some strange, weird, Halloween kind of way. That’s not the fear or the concern. The concern is that our realities get twisted, that our views of one another get twisted, that our views of marriage, of raising our kids, our money, our world, our politics, our religion--that somehow they gets so twisted that we make decisions that result in the destruction of relationships, possibly the destruction of human life.
So, for the next four weeks, we’re going to look at some of the major twists and pray that God, through his Word and through his grace, would help some of us see things a little bit different, respond to things a little bit different, because things are not always as they appear to be. We live in a world that’s been twisted.
Let’s pray together.
Heavenly Father, this is a big subject. It’s way bigger than me. And, yet, Lord, everybody listening has, at some point, looked at something, heard something, read something, and thought, "How could that happen? How could that happen? How could that happen?" Father, so many of us have been protected because we live in a world and we live in a culture that still acknowledges that there is one true living God, and that your Word is true. But most people in the world don’t live in that kind of culture, in that world. Father, would you use these next four weeks, not to scare us, but to bring our thinking into a context where we see things as they are. Father, for the men and women who are caught up in stuff and they just wonder how they’re gonna get out, I pray that their world will become untwisted. For men and women that are in marital issues and they just can’t get past them, I pray that they would they have a common enemy and it’s not each other. For the son or the daughter that’s running hard from home, I pray that they would see that their problem isn’t their parents. There’s someone who would love to destroy their lives physically, relationally, at every level, because he’s a murderer and a deceiver.
