Truth or Consequences?
Mapleton, Jan 3, 2010
Scripture: Genesis 3 & 4
How many of you remember the game show, “Truth or Consequences”? It was a show that actually started out as a radio show in 1940 and then went to television as well. Bob Barker made his television debut on Truth or Consequences after it had already been on the air for 17 years. When it came on tv in 1950, people were invited from the audience to perform various outrageous, usually rather messy stunts, because most of them could not answer the question correctly before Beulah the Buzzer, buzzed. Do you remember that? And the Truth or Consequences logo had a little halo over the word truth and there was a devil’s fork running up through the word Consequences. And Bob Baker ended the show with, “May all your consequences be happy ones!”
Well Truth or Consequences happened long before Ralph Edwards or Bob Barker were ever born. Genesis 3 & 4, is the first ever Truth or Consequences, but it is NOT a game show. It’s real life. And the consequences would NOT have been happy ones. But the truth is, if you select the right drawer (like the contestants used to do from Barker’s Box), it’s not money you will find and a bonus prize, but you’ll find nothing less than joy unspeakable and full of glory, and the bonus prize is eternal life in relationship with the one true and living God.
I promised you last week I was going to preach what I feel are the most important messages of ministry. Today we’re going to talk about truth. And we’re going to look at how Satan, since the beginning of time, perverts the truth. And how we succumb to the perversion. But we’re also going to look at how the consequences, much to Satan’s fury, can be happy ones. What we can do to protect ourselves from the lie.
First of all, “What is Truth?” Pilate asked that question of Jesus. Today, our postmodern age is questioning that there even is such a thing as truth. They say truth lies in our experience. And if my experience is different than your experience, then my truth is different than your truth. And what does it matter anyway as long as we get along and love each other? But that kind of love is a mile wide and an inch deep and it will never stand the test of time.
Josh McDowell tells about a question he asked Amber, a 16 year old girl in their Christian youth group. “Is it wrong to engage in premarital sex?” “Well, I believe it’s wrong for me.” “But do you believe that the Bible teaches that premarital sex is wrong for everyone?” Amber’s eyes shift back and forth as she weighs her answer. “Well, I know it’s wrong for me, and I have chosen not to have sex until I’m married. But I don’t think I can judge other people on what they do.”
McDowell’s conclusion is that Amber has been conditioned to believe that truth is not true for them unless they choose to believe it. That’s why over 80% of our kids today claim that “all truth is relative to the individual and his/her circumstances.”
In two national surveys conducted by Barna Research, people were asked if they believe that there are moral absolutes that are unchanging or that moral truth is relative to the circumstances. By a 3-to-1 margin adults said truth is always relative to the person and their situation. Among teenagers, 83% said moral truth depends on the circumstances, and only 6% said moral truth is absolute.
I want to tell you this morning, there is absolute truth.
Truth, plain and simple, is the standard God has set for his people.
And Amber is right - we don’t judge. GOD HAS ALREADY JUDGED. HE has set the standard. And it’s not a judgement when we live by that standard and expect our Christian brothers and sisters to live by that same standard.
And He gives us his standard in two ways:
a. His Son Jesus Christ
b. His spoken word - the Scripture
The truth is still truth - even if we don’t believe it.
Even one of this church’s denominations, the UCC, calls for a balance between freedom of conscience and accountability to the apostolic faith.
Accountability is not a likeable word, or action, these days. And we don’t see much balance in lifestyle in our postmodern culture either. We want it all and we want it now.
And Satan continues to pervert the truth. And it’s not so alarming that the world buys into the lies, but people who call themselves Christians are being hoodwinked into the relativism, and whole denominations are giving themselves over to the cultural norms so that to the world, a Christian doesn’t look any different than the rest of society and so we get labeled hypocrites, and unworthy of consideration because what difference could it possibly make in our lives to be one.
There are three specific ways Satan perverts the truth.
Truth
1. He questions the very existence of God’s standard. Look at chapter 3, verse 1. Satan comes to the woman and says, “Did God really say...?” In other words, this is not really God’s word. Did GOD really say? And oh boy, don’t we have that in our society today. The Bible is being attacked from all sides. What once, even non-believers, treated with respect as the holy canon of God’s inspired word, the Holy Bible, is coming under attack as just a bunch of stories written by men. But Jesus himself said in Matthew’s gospel that even heaven and earth would pass away but his words would never disappear. There are two Hebrew words and two Greek words describing God, the Word, which is Jesus Christ, and God’s Word, which is scripture.
And I submit to you this morning, God’s Word does not change, whether we accept it or not. God spoke - and it was so.
Adam and Eve didn’t accept it - they succumbed to Satan’s doubt-casting. And that’s the second thing Satan will do to pervert the truth.
2. He’ll cast doubt on God’s motives for establishing the standard in the first place. (3:5)
Look at verse 5 of chapter 3. “God knows when you eat, . . . you will be like God”!!
Wow! That’s quite an enticement isn’t it? That’s why we have to be so firm in our faith and in our knowledge of truth.
Satan’s casting doubt on God’s motives is very prevalent today. In fact, if you have strong convictions today - if you believe in absolute truth, you will most likely be viewed as arrogant, self-confident.
It’s seen as a sign of humility to be unsure of anything!
So Satan sows seeds of doubt in our mind, enticing us with our experience. That’s why we can’t rely on experience alone for the truth.
“God knows, if you do this, you’ll feel soooo good.”
“God doesn’t want you to be unhappy - you know that new four-wheeler would really make you happy.”
“One night out with the boys - whoopin’ it up, will just make you feel better.”
“Now he’s showing you REAL affection. That louse you’ve got doesn’t do that.”
“You deserve this - you’ll feel better if you do...”
And one of Satan’s ultimate lies . . .
“Why would God send anybody to hell - he’s supposed to be a loving God?”
Let me tell you - God doesn’t SEND anybody to hell. We go there of our own free will.
God has established a standard that we are to live by. And Satan will do whatever he can to cast doubt on God’s motives for establishing that standard. And if we are not rooted and grounded - if our roots don’t go way down deep in the truth of Jesus Christ and his word, we WILL get pulled into the lie.
And I can tell you - most of my life, and particularly since I’ve been in ministry, I’m not very self-confident. You can ask Ron, I’m more introvert, than extrovert. I don’t have a lot of self-confidence. But I can tell you what I DO have. I have GOD-confidence. I have a LOT of GOD-confidence. Because he has NEVER failed me and he never will!
The third thing Satan does is to
3. Deny the consequences of the sin he’s trying to lure us into:
Look at verse 4 of chapter 3, “You will not surely die.”
It’s a direct contradiction of what God told Adam. In other words, it’s a lie. Satan doesn’t know how to tell the truth. It’s a lie.
And Satan is willing to feed us lies as long as we’re willing to believe them.
Those are the three ways Satan will try to pervert the truth.
1. Question its existence.
2. Cast doubt on God’s motives for it. (I.e. Why should I believe that?)
3. Deny the consequences of not obeying it.
Well, what are the consequences?
Consequences
When we violate God’s standard we experience death. And death in the Bible is an all-encompassing term. It means death biologically, psychologically, socially and spiritually.
1. Biologically = death.
We age - we all die physically. When God removed the possibility for us to eat from the tree of life, physical life began to end. We’re all gonna die!
2. Psychologically = cover up.
Adam and Eve felt the shame of their nakedness, and we’ve been a shame-based society ever since.
Adam and Eve tried to cover up their sin by sewing fig leaves together, but then when God came walking in the garden in the evening, they still hid! Why? Because anything WE do to cover up our sin will never work. There has never been, and never will be, a human being saved by works.
So God made the garments. And he made them out of animal skins - more death. See, we can’t deal with the sin. We can’t, no matter how we try, redeem ourselves. God Himself, has to act if we are going to be covered from our sin.
3. Socially = disharmony
The harmony between husband and wife was broken - they blamed each other for what happened.
God said to the woman her desire would be for her husband and he would rule over her. That’s a consequence of sin. That’s not God’s plan for men and women. Eve lost her strong sense of personal identity when she seduced Adam, and society has become a struggle ever since of human beings trying to gain dominance over one another. It’s become a big game of “I’m better than you are, so you better listen to me, because I’m right.”
That’s NOT how God intended it to be between us!
Then Cain murdered Able because Cain’s sacrifice was unacceptable. Cain got mad because he felt like he was inferior to Able. And God told Cain to make it right, and then he’d be okay, but he wouldn’t - instead he killed his brother. And it’s happening still today. People would rather kill one another, whether it’s with words, or actions, than get their sacrifice right before God. Lamech, Cain’s son, violated God’s divine social order by taking two wives - more upset of the balance God ordained for his people. All the way to the days of Noah, and God took Noah and his wife, and his three sons and their wives - 8 people.
4. Spiritually = Alienation
Spiritually, all of humanity is born alienated from God’s perfect standard. Romans 3:23, we ALL fall short of God’s glorious standard. And so finally, Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, was sent to die for us. First, it was an animal, to make clothes for the first sinners, then it was the God’s precious Son. No wonder God says we are to clothe ourselves with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. No wonder God calls us to be holy, even as he is holy.
Well, how do we protect ourselves from Satan’s perversion?
Three ways:
1. Affirm what God has said.
Eve KNEW the truth. When Satan tried to twist the truth by suggesting that God said they couldn’t eat of ANY tree in the garden. Eve said, in vs 2 of chapter 3, “Of course we can eat of the trees in the garden. We just can’t eat the fruit off of ONE tree.”
God has given us the truth of his Son, Jesus Christ. He has given us the truth of his Word. He said:
“You can enter God’s kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gate-way to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” Matthew 7:13,14
Dear, dear, dear friends, the gate is STILL narrow. Truth is still truth. God’s word is still God’s Word. It’s power is not diminished because we question it. We still find Jesus right where Jesus himself said we would find him - in the Scriptures. Some of us look in the scriptures to find loopholes to the truth. Some of us look in the scriptures to find support for our arguments. Jesus said we are to look in the scriptures to find JESUS! Some people don’t even look in the scriptures - they just make pronouncements about the scriptures.
2. Understand His standards are good.
God’s standards are not intended to deny us pleasure but to protect us from harm.
Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden. But that was not an act of punishment on God’s part. It’s important we understand that. God removing them from the garden was an act of grace and mercy. He was taking them out of that wonderful garden so that they wouldn’t eat of the tree of life and live forever with the consequences of their sin. What a tremendous act of grace and mercy!
3. Live above the consequences
Christ died to deliver us from the consequences of sin. Oh we’ll still live in a sinful world. But we are called to be set apart - to be separate from the sinfulness. We are SUPPOSED to look different, act different, be different than the world around us.
In our speech
In our actions
In our private life
In the things we watch
In our relationships
We CANNOT flirt with the world and call ourselves holy. Because Jesus said, “You cannot serve two maters. Either we will hate the one and love the other, or we will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
The Gate is still narrow.
Truth is still truth.
Today . . . you have heard the truth.
(Prayer - and/or - final hymn.)
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus
NOTE: Ideas for the bulk of this message are taken from Larry O Richards "Devotional Commentary" for January 2.
SERMON NOTES
Truth or Consequences
Genesis 3 & 4
What is truth?
The __________________ God has set for His people. Through:
a. His Son Jesus Christ (John 1:1)
b. His spoken Word - the Scripture (James 1:22)
TRUTH
How Satan perverts the truth
1. ___________________ the very existence of God’s standard (Gen 3:1).
2. _____________ doubt on God’s ____________ for establishing the standard in the first place (3:5).
3. ______________ the consequences (3:4).
CONSEQUENCES
1. Biologically = _________________
2. Psychologically = _______________ ________ (3:7)
3. Socially = _____________ & _____________ (11-13)
4. Spiritually = _________________________ (8-10)
How do we protect ourselves?
1. ______________ what God has said.
2. ________________ His standards are ____________.
3. Live above the ____________________________.
