October 14, 2002
I. Introduction:
A. Examples of daily interference
1. When you open your e-mails, you get other e-mails that you have not requested. We call them Spam.
2. When you talk on the phone, you have another party interfering with your conversation. We call this party line.
3. When you drive on the road, you have somebody that just cuts into your lane. We call them crazy drivers.
4. When you watch TV, you get frequent changes in you TV reception. Sometimes it is bad; other times, it is good. We call these signal fluctuations.
5. When you are telling a story, you have somebody that finishes the story for you. We call them anti-climax persons.
B. Fact of the matter is, everywhere we go, whatever we do, someone or something will interfere with what we are doing.
1. Not only once, not twice, but most of the time.
2. Some of these interferences will come from someone we know, people that we respect, or perhaps someone that we love.
3. Some of these interferences come in a time when we are not expecting it.
4. It comes when we are too preoccupied with something different.
5. It even comes when we are trying to relax or be ourselves.
6. Some of these interferences range from a simple annoyance to extremely hazardous.
II. Body:
A. Hazards of interference
1. The spam that goes along with your emails usually carry virus can that harm or even destroy your computer.
2. When you have a party line in your phone, important information that you are sharing by phone can be recorded and used against you.
3. The driver that cuts in your lane can cause accident and in most cases lives can be lost.
4. Fluctuations in electrical and radio signals can cause death in many cases.
a) Sensitive medical equipments are easily affected by radio and electrical signals. Notice the warning sign in most hospitals: Turn off your cellular phones, beepers, etc.
b) Same with aircraft equipments.
1) Again, notice the warning sign when you board most airplanes: Turn off your cellular, beepers, etc.
2) TV antennas that are very close to airports can cause interference as pilots communicate with the tower.
c) Magnetic scanners that police or airport personnel uses to scan people as they board the aircraft can cause death especially for those who are wearing heart pacemaker.
5. People on life support
a) Temporary electrical shortage for those in life support system can mean sudden death.
B. So what’s the point?
1. The point is, whether we realize it or not, whether we believe it or not, we are in a life support system.
2. Our life is hanging by a thread.
a) You may be young or elderly, you are in a life support system.
b) You may be a man or woman, your life is in a life support system.
c) You can be white, black, yellow, or red, your life is in a life support system.
d) You can be educated or less educated, your life is in a life support system.
e) You can be rich or poor, your life is in a life support system.
f) You can be the master or the servant, it is the same for both.
g) We are not only living in an awful and terrible time, we are living our lives on a thread.
h) Everyone born into this world is in a life support system.
C. Biblical description of this reality
1. Psalm 90:5-6, “Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.”
D. Was this the reality since the beginning?
1. The answer is NO!
2. It was not like this in the beginning.
3. Notice God’s description in Genesis
a) Genesis 1:25. Describing the animals, the plants, trees, lakes, rivers, etc., that He had created, the Bible describes, “And God saw it was good.”
b) Genesis 1:31. Describing the human beings that God had created, the Bible describes, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”
4. God created the world and everything that is in it with the full intention that the earth, man and animals will continue to co-exist forever.
a) When we read the first two chapters of Genesis, we cannot find any hint of any curse, death or destruction in it.
b) It is, on the other hand, the opposite of death that we see. The opposite of a curse that we can read. The opposite of destruction that we find.
1) Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
2) Genesis 1:29, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”
3) In the above two verses, instead of a curse, I see a blessing.
4) Instead of destruction, I see God building up His creation.
5) Instead of death, I see life.
E. If this was the case in the beginning, why is the world hanging by a thread right now? Why are we in a life support system?
1. The answer is two-fold. First, Genesis 2:7 describes how God created man.
a) Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
1) From this verse, man is not only made of clay from the ground.
2) Man was given by God a special gift—the gift of life.
3) The verse says that God breathed into the man’s nostril, and man became a living being.
b) Application:
1) No matter how good the clay may look, if there is no breath of God in it, it is dead.
2) No matter how strong this clay may, if there is no breath of God in it, it is dead.
3) No matter how nice and fashionable the clothes this clay may be wearing, if there is no breath of God in it, it is dead.
4) No matter how rich in terms of material possessions this clay may have, if there is no breath of God in it, it is dead.
5) No matter how popular this clay may be, if there is no breath of God in it, it is dead.
6) No matter position this clay may occupy in the government or in the church, if there is no breath of God in it, it is dead.
7) Church application:
a. We may have the clay in the church, but if we don’t have the breath of God, we are dead.
b. We may have all the best singers, dynamic preachers, good leaders in this church, but if we don’t have the breath of God in us, we are dead.
c. We may try to involve ourselves in every ministry, but if there is no breath of God in us, we are dead.
d. We may have the form, the structure, the organization, but if the Spirit of god is not in us, we are good for nothing.
8) Zechariah 4:6, “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”
2. Second, the text says that the source of this breath of life is God.
a) This breath of life is not obtained as a result of millions of years of constant mutation and evolution.
b) It is not obtained from a medical lab.
c) It is not obtained by magic, or any other forms of sorcery.
d) It is solely a gift of God.
1) This is not a simple gift.
2) God did not give this gift by simply speaking it.
3) God did not give this gift by simply handing it to man.
4) God gave this gift in the most intimate avenue possible.
a. This time, God is no longer speaking.
b. His action speaks louder than His words.
c. After He had soiled His hands with the clay, He stoop down, put His mouth into the nostril of this lifeless clay, and breathed into his nostril the breath of life.
d. What an intimate description of what God had done.
e. God wanted to have an intimate relationship with His creatures.
f. He wanted to have fellowship with them.
3. Unfortunately, it did not take long, this intimacy, this union between God and man, between the Creator and His creatures, was interrupted. SIN had entered by the backdoor.
a) Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
b) They pulled the plug that brought them life.
c) They have separated themselves from the source of life.
d) Now pain, suffering, and death had become their life.
4. Principle—If God is the source of life, then separation from Him will naturally bring death.
a) God is the source of happiness, and separation from Him will only bring sadness.
b) God is the source of love, and separation from Him will bring hatred.
c) God is the source of wisdom, and separation from Him leads to foolishness.
d) God is the source of order, separation from Him brings confusion.
e) God is the source of blessing, separation from Him brings curses.
5. Biblical description of man’s condition
a) Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
b) Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
6. As sad and gloomy is the story of the Fall maybe, God, however, did not leave man without any hope. Amidst the curses, the pain, the suffering, and death, God devised a life support system.
a) Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
b) Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
c) John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
d) This life support system that we have is JESUS
F. Yes, since the Fall, man has continued to live on a life support system.
1. Lamentations 3:22, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
G. Sad reality
1. In spite of us being in a life support system, we have allowed interferences in our lives.
a) We have allowed the cares of the world to suffocate us.
b) We have allowed our unbelieving spouses to cut the plug that connects from our life support system.
c) We have allowed our employers to dictate when we can worship God.
d) We have allowed sufferings to shatter our hopes.
e) We have allowed the big waves of sin to stifle the growth of our faith.
f) We have allowed our pre-occupation with our job to hinder our spiritual growth.
g) We have allowed the temporary joys that the world is offering for the eternal joy that God is promising.
h) We are bored with church services. We want to get out. We want to experience the world.
i) We want to get out from our life support system.
III. Conclusion:
A. Because of sin, we are living on a life-support system.
B. Jesus is our life-support system.
C. Interferences are hazardous for us.
D. But we have allowed the cares of the world to interfere with our life support.
1. We are life the Israelites. They protested, saying, “We want to go back to Egypt.” “We want to have our own king.” “We want to be like the other nations.”
2. Illustration: Strong man hanging on his one finger.
E. Solemn warning: very soon the plug will be cut off. How will it be?
1. 1 Peter 4:17, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”
