Defeating Lies With Living Truth
April 15, 2021
Pastor Dan Little
email: adfontes.djl@gmail.com
The Landmark Church
126 Court St. Binghamton, NY 13901
Scripture reading Acts 2:17-24, 32, 36-41
Peter stands to address a large crowd. He sites one of Israel’s prophets (Joel) as saying;
Acts 2:17 " …in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. …
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32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.
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36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 38 And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. ESV
This is the very first public declaration by an Apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead, ascended back into the heavens and was now enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords and Savior of all.
Luke’s narrative says that Peter urged them saying; Acts 2: 40 "Save yourselves from this CROOKED generation."
In Philippians 2:15 the Apostle Paul urges the believers in the city of Philippi saying…I want you to learn to live UPRIGHT LIVES…so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God … in the midst of a CROOKED AND TWISTED generation.
In both these scriptures the Greek word they chose to use for crooked or twisted is skolios.
If that word sounds familiar it is probably because doctors use the word to describe a spinal difficulty they call SCOLIOSIS -- a condition in which the spine is crooked where it ought to be straight.
Some years back a church family had a young teenage girl with a a severe curvature of the spine, the kind that could be fixed by surgery once she stopped grown. When she reached about 16 the surgical procedure was performed and she stood nearly six inches taller than before.
Neither Peter nor Paul is referring to the physical body, but to damaged state of the heart of every generation since Adam and Eve, but (like that young girl,) they are saying that something is spiritually crooked in man, something will not allow us to stand to our full upright height of what it means to be fully human.
HERE IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS DIAGNOSIS
The first 3 chapters of Genesis gives us the Biblical background this condition.
In Genesis chapter one and two you have the story of the creation of the first human pair.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image , after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 So God created man in his own image , in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. ESV
“Let us…” (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), make humans in our own image. They will represent the glory and will and authority of God’s will on the earth. So God formed man of the dust of the earth and then did something that He only did in creating man. He breathed into him something of God-life. No other creature was made like that.
Walking in the image of God, conveying that image (the love and authority) to the whole of creation, is what it meant to be a fully upright human.
When God concluded all His works of creation He looked it over and declared in not just good, but VERY GOOD.
Genesis 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
In chapter Genesis 3 the enemy of God (Satan) appears before Eve as a serpent—a clever deceiver.
He lay in wait like an I.E.D (improvised explosive device) to present the BIG LIE.
What big lie? This...that things were not quite "very good" as God has said.
Good? Maybe, but not quite "very good".
One little tweak and THEN things would really be very good, THEN man (Adam and Eve and all their generations after them) would really bear the whole and complete image and character of God.
This tweak involved doing just one little thing—the one and only thing that God had told them not to do.
They needed to eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then they would really and truly and fully be the bearers of God’s image on the earth. God (as Satan told the story), had kept this information from them because He feared competition. Genesis 3:5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
So they believed the lie, ate of the fruit, and "BOOM" not only did they NOT become more like God, when they acted on that lie the I.E.D. went off and the explosion in the inner parts of their humanity impacted them with such force as to twist and bend and warp the image of God, and for the first time death began to operate in the bodies. Which is what God said would happen.
The rest of Genesis and much of the Old Testament shows us case after case of what that lie did to the successive generations, right up to the generations to which Peter and Paul preached. But it also gives us hints along the way of Adam’s original glory as we see various persons desire to entered back into a trusting relationship with God. Such persons are often referred to as prophets an prophetesses, people who serve God in deep humility.
Every time we find a person seeking relationship with God they begin to grow back toward their full un-bent inner height as a human. But never do we see what it means to stand fully and completely upright as a human until we come to the New Testament where we see Jesus.
In Him alone do we finally see the first fully functional human since the image of God was twisted in Adam and Eve.
In fact the New Testament calls Jesus the second or final Adam. He has all kinds of astounding authority as God’s image bearer. He has power over sickness, death, and animals, as well as having authority over trees, seas, demons and storms.
Jesus is everything that the first Adam had been before the lie exploded in their face and left them horribly disfigured, bent and twisted. Jesus was and is everything Adam and Eve had been when they were absolutely complete in the likeness of God.
But we see more than the past glory of Adam when we look upon Jesus. WHEN WE LOOK AT JESUS WE SEE OUR OWN REDEEMED LIVES--WE SEE OUR FUTURE.
Jesus makes a sweeping invitation saying; “Come to me now and starting today we will begin to undo the damage of the lie that has brought such ruin to every generation since Adam and Eve.
Lies that warp and bend your humanity are the stock and trade of Satan. Jesus called him the FATHER OF LIES. When we treat his lies as true they diminish our humanity.
The key to getting free is to learn God’s truth so you can identify each lie as you come to it. This you do by regularly shinning the light of God’s Word into your thoughts. (You need to be a person of the Word.)
The light of God’s Word will open your eyes to these lies as you come upon them. And one of the ways a these lies show themselves is in your self-talk.
Back on April 1, Palm Sunday, I gave you a paper with 21 common satan lies. I asked yuo to circle any that might sound familiar to you—familiar in that this or that one might be similar to the things you sometimes tell yourself. Last Sunday we looked at the top four.
Here, from our Survey, are the next most frequently circled statements that you said sound similar to the things you sometimes tell yourself.
These fall into the 4 to 5% category.
5. I am worthless—dirty and I can never be forgiven or restored to joy.
6. The value of my life is in what I own and the amount of money I have.
7. Life has no meaning.
8. I will be happy if I just follow my heart.
9. I can’t help it-it’s just how I was raised. I can’t change.
10. All I need to do is be "good" and act "nice." I don’t need church or Jesus.
11. If I don’t look like THAT person, then I am not a beautiful or attractive person.
All 21 of the statements on that survey had to do with self-talk—the kind of lies that somewhere long the line get planted in your mind and then you repeat them to yourself over your life time.
The book TELLING YOURSELF THE TRUTH , is all about confronting such lies by catching them as they show up in your self-talk, and then confronting them with biblical tuth self-talk, not from the Father of lies, but truth from you loving Father in heaven. (You will see overlap in the this list with one presented to you on Palm Sunday.)
Here is a short list of self-talk lies from the book
1. I am dumb.
2. I am unattractive.
3. People don’t like me.
4. I have no talent.
5. My life is miserable and that’s as good as it will ever get.
6. I’m a nervous wreck.
7. I am dull and uninteresting.
8. I’m no good.
9. I’m sick.
These things usually get planted in us when we are very young. By the time we becoming teens and the adults we have repeated them to ourselves thousands of times. And what is the result? We take on the warp and bend of these lies and we begin behaving accordingly. These lies form their own network of paths in our brains. They have their own groove worn right into our psyche, and until we put them to flight with the truth they will continue to bend our lives into miserable shapes, obscuring the image of God more and more and more.
THESE LYING THOUGHTS MUST BE TAKEN CAPTIVE
What does taking a thought captive to Christ look like in practice? Lets take lie number 5 which says “My life is miserable but that’s about all I can hope for.”
Remember…
1. These lies all have the same origin.
2. These lies are planted for the purpose of bending and twisting how
God want to use you to bear His image.
3. These lies are always defended
4. These lies can always be defeated
First you must recognize what the lie is and where it comes from.
And when you do you press the truth of God’s Word right up against the lie.
There will be resistance, but God’s truth is the one weapon that puts lies to flight every time it is employed as your weapon of choice.
2 Corinthians 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
So you identify the lies as you find them (as you hear youself repeating them with your inner voice or your outter voice), and when you exosed one you must deal with it by saying; “Well, that lie is from the Father of lies. It is a thought that is exalting itself against the knowledge (and immage) of God. I will take it captive and destroy its power over me with God’s living and eternal truth about me.
Here is what God says about Himself and me; Jeremiah 29:11 I (God) know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out — plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.
12 "When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.
13 "When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.
"Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, 14 I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed."
God says He knows what He is doing.
That means you can fully trust Him.
So the question becomes this; “Do you want to change.”
If you do then you have to be ready to go to work.
Becoming a follower of Jesus is impossible if you are a practitioner of "lazy".
Listening to me preach these truths can stimulate your hopes, but to actually engage with God and confront the old lies with His truth, that takes work on your part.
Some of these lies you have been telling yourself for years and years. I said they have created their own path in your brain. You must not only take the lie captive but you must destroy the familiar path you used to go there, drag it out and repeat it again.
Let me return to the scoliosis illustration. Even after the girl had the operation to straighten her spine (they had to wait until she was nearly fully grown before doing the surgery), …even after the surgery it took months and months to learn how to walk at her fully restored height. It tooks months of hard work.
Back in 1963 I took a hit to the knee in sports that totally ruined it. Anything that could break and snap and tear did break and snap and tear. That was my last quarter of football. After surgery I was in a cast for 14 weeks. When the day came for the cast to come off I could hardly wait, but I was sick at heart when I saw the shrunken state of my leg and that my knee simply did not bend.
It took months and months of quite painful therapy before some flexibility and strength returned.
Was I willing to go through that pain? You bet, and here’s why; because I saw the day coming when I would be able to walk and run again. It was nearly two years before most of my strength and flexibility came back. And all that time I was also learning how to walk without a limp. That’s right, over the months I had learned to walk a new way to compensate for the damage done to my knee. Walking that way became normal for me. The trouble was that it was making my right side hip and my back sore. Only by conscious effort and help was I able to see what I was doing wrong and come back to walking in a relaxed manner where I trusted my left knee to support and hold me.
Why would you want to go through the effort and work of destroying lies that are arguing against and exalting themselves to a higher place in your life than you now give the truth of God?
Why do it when it is going to be difficult and sometimes painful? You do it for the same reason that I pushed through the pain of therapy. I knew what my future looked like. I knew that I was cooperting with doctors and therapists toward the full use of my left leg.
That is the same reason you overthrow the life-controlling lies. You do it because in seeing Jesus you see your own future, but it is not a future that starts in heaven. Jesus has come to you now. Heaven has come to you now. The transformation starts now.
The warp and ruin and bending and twisting of your humanity has been removed from your inner man by Jesus dying on the cross and rising again from the dead. He triumphed over the death and the damage of sin. Your life is now in Him.
NOW… you have to learn to walk in this new life. You must learn to spot the lies that keep you limping, that keep you imprisoned, keep you from standing to your full full height in God, and you are willing to go through tis because in Jesus and His resurrection you see what you are going to be (the exact likeness and image of God), and the transformation process (learning to walk without the old limp) begins now.
The Apostle Paul put it this way; 2 Corinthians 3:18
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory , even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Salvation is not about saying right words to get saved and then sitting down to wait for the return of Jesus so you can go and spend a lifetime in heaven doing nothing.
Jesus has come to you now to return you to living at your full height as His image and likeness here on the earth. Jesus is the future you. Behold Him and be changed so that the World might see God in you.
So keep praying from Ephesians that God would give you wisdom and revelation and knowledge to know what is true.
Ephesians 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
