I. Introduction – The evil hidden within
Many of you grew up in “The Golden Age of Radio.” You have fond memories of gathering around the radio to listen to your favorite shows. I wasn’t around for those days; I grew up as a child of the television era. But there is at least one radio show that ran for nearly a quarter-century whose tagline was so well-known, it is recognizable even today. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? ––– The Shadow Knows!”
The Shadow was an invincible crime fighter. Like many of today’s “Superheroes,” he had incredible strength, as well as a host of “super powers” which enabled him to overcome any enemy.
But maybe his greatest power as a crime fighter was the one that famous tagline revealed:
Before evil can be destroyed, it must be revealed.
As our nation fights against terrorist elements, the most difficult aspect of the work can’t be accomplished with fancy, high-tech weaponry. The most difficult aspect of this battle is intelligence: getting evidence that certain individuals are responsible for terrorist actions, and then finding them.
For terrorism to be destroyed, the perpetrators, the terrorists must be revealed.
Our passage this morning tells us that there is a similar principle that happens in our own hearts.
II. Our Capacity for Self-Deception
A. Wrong ruler
There was once a little boy who excitedly told his mom that he had just measured himself and he was six feet tall.
Mom was a little skeptical, so she asked him to measure himself again while she watched.
She discovered the problem when the boy took out not a 12-inch, but a 6-inch ruler.
He had calculated well: he was six-ruler-heights tall – he just had the wrong ruler, the wrong standard
We often fall into the same problem ourselves
B. We often judge ourselves by a very different standard than even the one we judge others by.
1. During the Alpha Course, Nicky Gumbel tells a story about how he often rode his bike to work and loved to whiz down the bike lane past the snarled rush hour traffic in London. It would irritate him no end when some car would try to make time by using the bike lane as their own personal expressway.
2. But one day, it was raining, and he was driving in to work, and running late. So he pulled into the bike lane, telling himself, “Well, I really HAVE to use it, I’m late, so it’s OK for ME to use it.”
3. He was judging his height with a six inch ruler
a) When he was on his bike, he used a full 12-inch ruler to measure others
b) But when he was in his car, he used the little 6-inch ruler to judge himself
c) He was deceiving himself – but at least he realized it at some point!
C.We just hate to admit our own sin!
1. But just as we said about finding terrorists or about “The Shadow” revealing the evil of the criminals he sought,
Before evil can be destroyed, it must be revealed.
In the same way, Before sin can be forgiven, it must first be brought to light.
2.That’s why we have to confess sin before we are forgiven
a) It’s not because GOD doesn’t know we’ve sinned
b) It’s because WE have to come to the place where we RECOGNIZE and ACKNOWLEDGE our own sin.
D. Cartoon
Four congregation members with concerned faces met in their pastor’s office. They’re presenting him with a clipboard filled with sheets of signatures.
The spokesperson says, "This petition requests changing the term ’sinner’ to ’person who is morally challenged.’" (From an original cartoon by Dan Pegoda, The Best Cartoons from Leadership)
E. We HATE admitting we’ve sinned!
1. Do you ever do this?
You do something and you get an uneasy feeling about it
At some point you say, “It’s not really a SIN…it’s more of a __________ (fill in the blank)”
Or maybe, “Everybody else does this.”
Or even, “It really wasn’t my fault… if ____ hadn’t ___, I wouldn’t have done it!”
We HATE admitting we’ve sinned.
We’ll kid ourselves,
we’ll lie to ourselves,
we’ll make excuses and rationalizations.
One of the religious hermits during the early centuries of the church said this:
The man who knows his sins is greater than one who raises a dead man by his prayer. (Isaac the Syrian, Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 2.)
G. So we’ve got two truths to deal with here:
1. We hate admitting even to ourselves that we’ve sinned - often to the point where we don’t even recognize sin in our own lives
2. Before sin can be forgiven, it must first be brought to light.
So what do we do? Where do we turn for help with this?
Ruth E. Van Reken: Our human reasoning alone isn’t enough to discern truth from error. The best protection against deception is to know God’s revealed truth, the Bible.
III. The verses we read today tell us that the Scriptures are not just words on a page,
Not just stories and rules and advice
But that the words of Scripture, the Word of God is
a) Living,
b) it is Active
the Greek literally means “powerful, energetic”
c) And that it is Sharp
“Sharper than any double-edged sword
The Romans developed the double-edged sword, and one person said it was the equivalent of the atom bomb
Until that time, all swords were single-edged
While a single-edged sword can chop your head off well enough A double-edged sword can pierce and be thrust through with relative ease
The double-edged sword was a powerful tool the Romans could use against their enemies in battle.
How is the Bible like a double-edged sword?
a) It pierces right to the core of things
b) It can pierce through self-deception,
c) it can pierce hypocrisy
I like the way the New Living Bible translates this verse:
For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are.
Mark Twain once said:
Most people are bothered by those Scripture passages which they cannot understand. But for me, the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
I think it is often true that Christians would rather discuss difficult passages and try to come to some understanding of them than to just take the easy passages and obey them
Oswald Chambers
If you are religious, it is easier to read some pious book than the Bible. The Bible treats you like human life does--roughly.
The pastor of a church I frequently visited in a rough section of Boston used to sometimes say, “We’re not here to play around. If you’ve got business to do with God, do it now.”
If you come to church or read the bible or practice any other spiritual discipline just to act religious, you’re wasting your time and deceiving yourself.
James 1 says this:
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-- he will be blessed in what he does.
My preaching professor, Haddon Robinson, retells a story about a man who held his baby son in front of a mirror.
The baby moved; the reflection moved.
Baby waved; the reflection waved.
Suddenly the youngster’s face lit up.
He realized, That’s me!
Robinson goes on and says this:
Every so often that happens when you’re reading the Bible. You pick it up, and it’s black print on a white page, telling stories about the long ago and far away. But as you read the text, the print seems to disappear. On the page of Scripture, you see a reflection of yourself.
The Scripture is not just a book of old stories, of rules and regulations, of poetry and prophecy.
It is living
It is WORKING in our lives.
The PURPOSE for which it is working is to reveal to us the sin in our lives so we can turn from it and be forgiven.
“It exposes us for what we really are.”
Philosopher Soren Kirkegaard:
Christian truth itself has eyes to see with. In fact it is all eye. That’s very disquieting. Think of looking at a painting and discovering that the painting was looking at you. Precisely such is the case with Christian truth. It is looking back at me to see whether I do what it says I should do.
For many people, It is more than disquieting, it’s downright irritating!
Hebrews tells us that the Word of God Judges the desires and thoughts of the heart
Tells us what we don’t want to hear:
At one church, the pastor was greeting folks in the back after service. One man shook hands, looked intently at the pastor and said, "Powerful sermons, Pastor. Thoughtful, well researched. I can always see myself in them…and I want you to knock it off."
STOP SHOWING ME MYSELF!!
I don’t like seeing my sin
I don’t want you rattling the skeletons in my closet
I like my sin and I want to keep it!
But one of the main purposes for reading the Word of God is that we might see ourselves, see our sins – and seek forgiveness and grace, which God is always anxious to give us!
Quoting Kierkegaard again:
When you read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me."
Reading, studying AND APPLYING God’s Word is essential if we are to live a truly Christian life. And verse 13 tells us why
13 There is nothing that can be hid from God; everything in all creation is exposed and lies open before his eyes. And it is to Him that we must all give an account of ourselves.
Have you ever practiced an excuse you’re going to give to somebody for something you did that hurt or upset them?
You’ve just got it down perfectly, it sounds totally convincing
Until you actually come face to face with the person, and it sounds totally lame?
It’s so obvious they can see through it, you’re embarrassed you said anything at all?
Someday, we’re going to stand before God and give and account of our lives.
We’ll have to give an account for how we used our time
How we raised our kids
How we used the gifts God gave us
How we used the money God gave us
How we treated people
Especially people who were poor or unemployed or a different color than us.
We are going to have to face up to all the sins we were unwilling to acknowledge and confess.
The selfishness
The failure to put God first
The out of control temper we said we couldn’t change
The bitterness towards those we said we couldn’t forgive
And you may have all your excuses and explanations all planned out and they sound great right now.
But when you stand before God, they’re going to sound really lame
We’ll realize we don’t have a leg to stand on
Because God offered to forgive us in this life if we would acknowledge our sin and confess it
And God offered to send the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us if we wanted to be transformed
But we didn’t want to be transformed
We liked our sin and wanted to keep it.
Consequences of Neglecting the Word
A number of years ago, a commercial for Fram Oil Filters pictured a car mechanic standing by a blown engine. He says the engine was destroyed because the owner didn’t get the oil changed when it needed it. Then he holds up a Fram Oil Filter and says, “Pay me now – or pay me later.”
What this passage is saying is “Judge yourself now; or God will judge you later”
Ask the Holy Spirit to use the Word of God to change your life now – or wait til you see God face to face
One of those billboards with little “words from God” says, “Have you read my best seller? There will be a test.”
But the test will not be on how much you know
It won’t be like some Bible trivia test where you have to name all twelve tribes of Israel
It will be a test of whether we allowed God’s Word to penetrate to the depths of our hearts, to inform our choices, to impact how we use our time, our money, our gifts and our resources for Him
It will be a test of whether we were willing to agree with God about what sin is, to turn away from it and to receive His mercy and grace
It will be a test of whether we sought the Holy Spirit’s power to live a life pleasing to God.
D.L Moody said:
The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.
Conclusion
Many of you faithfully read your Bibles
But don’t just read it… ask the Holy Spirit to use it as a double-edged sword to change your life
Many of you perhaps don’t have any regular time you spend in the Scriptures
If not, how can you ever hope to have God move in your life?
How can you know what God’s Will IS if you don’t spend time in His Word?
Last Week I talked about memorizing Scripture and how important it is to get Scripture in our heads if we are to have it in our hearts and apply it in our lives.
A few people signed up to get more information about memorizing Scripture
If you’re interested, I’ve left the sign-up sheet out there for one more week
I’m going to pull together some resources and help those folks – and to help myself – to develop this spiritual discipline that can be so powerful.
who want to have a new commitment to knowing and practicing God’s Word
Charles Swindoll, Insight For Living said "I know of no other single practice in the Christian life more rewarding, practically speaking, than memorizing Scripture...No other single exercise pays greater spiritual dividends! Your prayer life will be strengthened. Your witnessing will be sharper and much more effective. Your attitudes and outlook will begin to change. Your mind will become alert and observant. Your confidence and assurance will be enhanced. Your faith will be solidified." "Seasons of Life" p 53
Maybe you’re not ready to even look into taking on such a spiritual discipline at this point in your life. But I encourage you to sign up on that sheet even if you’re just intrigues but not quite ready to try it.
For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are.
And by the Grace of God and the Power of the Holy Spirit, it is a tool to transform us into what we are really meant to be.
