The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday evening, June 25, 2000, at the Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now I would encourage you to
turn with me in your own Bibles to the eighth chapter of the
Gospel of John, John chapter 8. Now those of you that have any
familiarity with this portion of John's Gospel know that in
the eighth chapter of John, as in so many of the chapters of
John's Gospel, the Lord Jesus says some very amazing and wonderful
things about himself. It is here in John 8 and verse
12 that the well-known words of Jesus are found, I am the
light of the world. He that follows me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Christ claims
not to be one light among many, but THE light of the world. In verse 23 he makes another
amazing claim. He said unto them, You are from
beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not
of this world. appearing in true human nature
with a real body. If someone pricked the finger
of Jesus, he would have shed real blood. When he got bumped
in a little neighborhood game with his buddies as a boy, he
got bruises like everyone else. If he fell on the parking lot,
he'd scrape his knee and need to have Mary clean out the gravel
and put a Band-Aid on it. And yet he says he's not of this
world. His origin is from heaven itself,
an amazing claim. And then in verse 29, he makes
a claim that no other human being could ever make. He writes, he
says, and John writes, he that sent me is with me. He has not
left me alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing
to him. Think of it. He could claim that
there was never a circumstance Never a situation in which the
words, the deeds, the thoughts of Jesus were not fully, completely,
without qualification, acceptable to His Father. And then in verse
36, He makes another amazing claim. He says, If the Son shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. He claims to have the
power to break the very chains by which sin binds all of its
servants. He had said earlier, who so commits
sin is the bond slave of sin. But he said, I, the Son, can
make you free and free indeed. But as so often is recorded in
the book of John, when Jesus made these claims, he was frequently
making them in the face of some of his most bitter enemies. In
fact, much of the content of the Gospel of John is structured
around Jesus' controversies with the religious leaders of his
day, and often the controversy focused upon Jesus' claims about
himself. And that's exactly what happens
in this 8th chapter of John as well. For in verse 40 of this
chapter, Jesus said to the very ones in whose presence he claimed
to be light of the world, the one who came from above, always
pleasing the Father, the one who can make men free from the
bondage of sin, he said to those who heard those very words, now
you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth. which
I heard from God." He's looking into the face of people whom
he knows are intent on murdering him. And in that very setting,
Jesus, as it were, drops the gloves, not to go into fisticuffs
with his enemies, but he assails them with his words of truth. And in that setting, he speaks
the words to which I now draw your more focused attention in
verse 44. Jesus says to these religious
leaders, now seeking to kill him, you are of your father the
devil. And the lusts or the desires
of your father, it is your will to do. He that is the devil,
he was a murderer from the beginning. and stands not in the truth because
there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks
of his own, for he is a liar and the father thereof. But because I say the truth,
you believe me not." We're going to look very closely at one part
of this passage that I've read in your hearing As we consider
tonight this subject from this text, and then we will go to
another basic text in the Old Testament, the devil's murderous
lies. The devil's murderous lies. And to form the biblical basis
of our consideration of this vital subject, I want you to
note with me from verse 44, these three very obvious truths asserted
by the Lord Jesus. First of all, Jesus asserts that
there is a real, personal, intelligent, spiritual being called the devil. Look at his language. You are
of your father, the devil. The lust of your father it is
your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and stands not in the truth because there is no truth in him when
he speaks a lie. He speaks of his own for he is
a liar and the father thereof. He says you are of your father
the devil. He, not it, some impersonal force,
but he was a murderer. There is no truth in Him. He speaks. He influences. He powerfully and effectually
works in other human beings so that His very desires are done
by them. For our Lord Jesus The concept,
the term, the devil, is not a religious notion. It is not some kind of
an antiquated bit of religious rubbish held over from a day
that now men have outgrown. He was a real, personal, intelligent,
spiritual being. Remember, our Lord Jesus, immediately
after his baptism, was driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness
We are told to be tempted of the devil. And when we read in
Matthew chapter 4 and in Luke chapter 4 of the temptations
of our Lord Jesus, we see our Lord Jesus interacting not with
some vague, abstract notion of evil personified in something
called the devil, but a real, personal, intelligent, spiritual
being who seeks to seduce our Lord Jesus to sin and to violate
the will of his father. For our Lord Jesus, the devil
is indeed real, personal, intelligent, spiritual being. And furthermore,
in our Lord's ministry, he was constantly encountering the devil's
own lackeys and servants called demons. And wherever the Lord
Jesus ministered, demonic power was stirred up and manifested
itself. And we are told in the gospel
records that Jesus not only healed many of their diseases, but cast
out demons. These lackeys, these servants
of the devil who accomplish his will and purpose. That's the
first truth established by our text. Secondly, our Lord establishes
in these words the essential character of the devil as that
of a murderer and a liar. Look at the language of the text.
He was a murderer from the beginning and stands not in the truth because
There is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks
of his own, for he is a liar. Two things our Lord says about
the devil. When I'm preaching on this text
to children, as I did last Lord's Day morning down in Miami, Florida,
I said in the gathering of the whole church that anyone over
14 could not answer the questions. I wanted all those 14 and under
to expound this verse. And when I ask the children,
what are the two things that Jesus says about the devil? Little
six and seven year old saw it immediately. One cannot miss
it. He was a murderer. He is a liar. Those are descriptions of his
essential character. He is a murderer from the beginning. He is a liar and the father of
it. That is the father of the lie. Now let's pause for just a moment
and define what is a murderer and what is a liar. When Jesus
said he was a murderer, what was Jesus saying? What constitutes
anyone a murderer? If you say the taking of another
life, that's not precise enough. And when I want to gross out
the kids, I go into an extended illustration of what would happen
if a big fat cockroach came up the stairs and across the platform
reared back on its hind legs and began to insult me. And I
would have bring my size 12 right down on that cockroach's back
and you'd hear the cracking crunch and the squish and the kids usually
go, yeah, and whisper, that's gross. But no matter how gross
it is, no one would have the right to rise up and point a
finger at me and say, you murderer, you took another life. Well,
it is true. I would have taken another life
if I squashed little Charlie Cockroach, but I wouldn't be
a murderer. Some of you here are hunters, and you see a nice
eight-point buck in your crosshairs through your scope, and you pull
the trigger on your .30-06, and that deer drops, no one can come
and put you in cuffs and haul you away as a murderer. You've
taken another life. A life more complex and more
fascinating and in some ways more dignified and noble than
the life of a filthy little cockroach. But you've taken another life,
yet you're not a murderer. We read in the scripture tonight
that David was blessed of God in military conquest and he slew
many. He slew the giant. Yet God not
God charged him with murder. Why? You see, to be a murderer
is essentially to take another human life without divine warrant. That's what constitutes someone
a murderer. When the civil governor takes
another life in obedience to God, as we learned in the adult
class this morning, the civil governor is not to be charged
with murder. When a soldier takes another
life in a just war, He is not charged with murder. When someone
defends himself from another who would brutally and wantonly
take his life, he is not charged with murder. To be a murderer
is to take another human life without divine warrant. And that's
what the devil is. He is, in his very essence, a
murderer. Jesus said, a murderer from the
beginning. He was a murderer in his first
appearance upon earth, as we shall see. He was a murderer
then. He is a murderer now, whose intent
is nothing less than to destroy your life and mine. As we saw
a few weeks ago in our study of 1 Peter, your adversary, speaking
to believers, your adversary, the devil, goes about as a roaring
lion seeking who may may literally gulp down as a ravenous beast
is not content to go out and play with another creature but
to kill it and to devour it so the devil is in his very essence
and being a murderer one who seeks to destroy human life and
then Jesus said he's a liar what is a liar? A liar is one who
willfully distorts or denies the truth. That's a liar. One
who willfully distorts or denies the truth. And to be an effective
liar, you've got to spawn your lies so that they have a semblance
of the truth. And then where I'm speaking to
children, I'd use this illustration. If you children should ask me,
how old are you, Pastor Martin? And I'm determined to lie to
you, and to really get you to believe my lie, but I'd be stupid
enough to say, well, I just had my 21st birthday. Yeah, you'd
do exactly that. You'd smile and hold back your
laughter and say, who are you trying to kid? You're going to
lie about your age. You've got to do a better job
than to say you just had your 21st birthday. Wouldn't float. But for those who don't know,
if I were to say, well, I'm 59, 64, 67. Should I take a vote? I did that with the kids last
week, and it was just about even, except the 67. I only had two
or three takers. I said, but every one of those
would be a lie. I'm neither 59, 64, or 67. If you don't know what I really
am, ask my wife. 66. But you see, the devil, in his
murderous intent, is a very effective liar. He has learned how to present
his lies that have a semblance of reality, or else men would
run in horror from him and from his murder weapon. There is a
real, personal, intelligent, spiritual being called the devil. Secondly, the essential character
of the devil is that of a murderer and a liar. And then thirdly,
note from our text, the devil has always been in the business
of murdering with his lies from the beginning. He was a murderer
from the beginning and stands not in the truth because there
is no truth in him. And when we ask, what is his
murder weapon? Jesus tells us, the dagger in
his hand that drips with the blood of human souls is the lie. And it's been that way from the
beginning. He was a murderer from the beginning. He speaks a lie. He speaks of
his own, for he is a liar. So for at least 6,000 years,
he's been in the business of murdering men women, boys and
girls, and his murder weapon, his dagger by which he destroys,
is the lie. And if God has in his word revealed
his lies and set them in contrast to his truth, then it is a matter
of spiritual, eternal life and death to take the words of Jesus
seriously. Every one of you sitting here
lives by what you believe to be the truth. Each of us lives
by what he believes to be the truth. And we either live our
lives framed, believing the devil's lies, or our lives are framed
by believing the words of truth. See what Jesus says in this very
chapter in verse 31? The Jews therefore said, Jesus
said to the Jews that believed him, if you abide in my word,
then are you truly my disciples and you shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. He says, if you live by
that truth that I am and that I speak, you will know liberty
and freedom. If you live by the lies of the
devil, you will know nothing. but bondage and death. And it's not very flattering
when the word of God tells us in passages such as Ephesians
chapter 2 that all of us by nature framed our lives by the lies
of the devil. Look at Ephesians 2, 1 to 3.
You did he make alive when you were dead through your trespasses
and sins. Where in you once walked? Here
are walking dead men and women, boys and girls. You were dead
through your trespasses and sins. Where in you once walked? And
what framed our walk, our patterns of life? Look at the text. You
walked according to the course of this world. What lies behind
the patterns of life established by the world? according to the
prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now is working
in the sons of disobedience. Paul says that by nature we live
by the lies of the prince of the powers of the air, the devil
himself. so that when anyone is truly
converted by God's grace, that conversion involves, among other
things, being delivered from this power of the devil by which
he holds his subjects captive. So when the Lord Jesus commissions
His servant Paul, as recorded in Acts 26.18, the Lord Jesus
says, to Paul, here is your ministry
and this is what I will do. I will deliver you from the people
and the Gentiles unto whom I send you to open their eyes that they
may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto
God. The Lord Jesus says, Paul, my
servant, as I send you forth to minister to the people, that
is, the Jews and to the Gentiles, Wherever you go, into whatever
circumstances you come, in ministering the word, assume that your hearers
are held in the power of the devil himself. And that if they
are truly converted, by my spirit working by and with my word of
the gospel, their eyes will be opened, and they will be delivered
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission
of sin, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith
in me." It's not a very humbling thing to face what God says you
and I are by nature. held in the power of the devil,
and how does he hold his subjects? By the influence of his lies.
And once the eyes are opened to see his murderous lies, we
turn to Christ to his return. We are delivered from the damning,
destructive power of the devil's lies, and come into the gracious,
liberating, sanctifying power of Jesus' words of truth. And it's a sobering thing to
stand here tonight and to know that in a very real sense, not
in some flourish of rhetorical exaggeration, I stand here to
beard that foul fiend of hell in the name of my Savior that
some of you might be taken out of his clutches. And he knows
that. He's not omniscient, but he knows
when he's fronted. And if you find your mind being
distracted, you find your spirit rising up to think of other things,
remember, there's someone seeking to hold you in his power by his
lies. Try to God that Jesus' word of
truth will expose you, open your eyes, and deliver you from his
power. We're going to look at four or
five, as time permits, of those major lies by which the devil
does his murderous work, and we take our clue from the words
of Jesus. Jesus said he was a murderer
from the beginning. What beginning? At the beginning
of creation, in the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth, Genesis 1-1. John 1 in the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same
was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. But
He's a murderer from the beginning. That is, the beginning of His
first appearance. And we want to turn and see Him
as He comes to our first mother, Eve, with His murder weapon,
very artfully concealed, but nonetheless present as he seeks
to murder Eve and Adam. What is his first lie to our
first parents? Genesis 3 and verse 1. Now the
serpent was more subtle, more clever than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made. This is not speaking of
some subtlety that the devil had injected, but notice of any
beast that the Lord had made. God looked upon all that he made
and it was good. And here was a creature in some
form that was inherently more wise, more subtle than any other
creature that God had made. But God had not made any other
creature but man as a talking creature. So when we find this
creature of God talking immediately, there's an abnormality. And he
appears. Follow the narrative. This serpent,
who was more subtle, more clever than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, yea, Indeed,
has God said, you shall not eat of any or all of the trees of
the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent,
the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, you shall not eat of it. What is the devil's first
lie? It's so subtle. It doesn't come
as a blatant, outright lie, but it is a lie nonetheless. And
you know what it is? Here it is. God's Word may not
be clear or true. That's His lie. His lie is the
affirmation, the insinuation of a doubt. God's Word, Eve,
may not be as clear or as trustworthy as you think it is. First time
the devil is introduced, he's a talking devil. And he said,
indeed, has God said, you shall not eat of all the trees of the
garden? Eve, are you really certain that
what God said was as clear as you presently perceive it is? Or as true and trustworthy as
right now you believe it to be? seeking to shake the foundations
of Eve's conviction concerning the clarity and the unquestioned
truthfulness of God's Word. Is His Word, Eve, really clear? Is His Word really true? And at this point, the murderer
is poised to strike. How should Eve have responded
if indeed she should have been separated from her husband in
the first place, and engaging this strange talking serpent
there in the garden. Eve should have responded by
saying, I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you
are doing talking to me. But in answer to your question,
yes, God's Word is clear. God's Word is true. End of discussion. But the murder
weapon has, in a sense, been poised and now is brought to
the surface of her heart, ready to be plunged into its very center. Last Lord's Day morning, early
as I was meditating upon this matter, and thinking of how Eve
should have engaged in a little holy poetry, doggerel, if you
will, when the devil said, has God said? Is His Word really
as clear as you think it is, or as true as you believe it
to be? Eve should have responded, Talking
Serpent, whoever you are, God's Word is clear. God's Word is
true. Get lost, Talking Serpent. I'm finished with you. This is
what she should have done. God's Word is clear. God's Word
is true. Get lost. talking serpent, I'm
finished with you. That's exactly the way you must
respond if you have any value for your never dying being. I
didn't say never dying soul. You have human existence, body,
soul. And the devil's out to murder
the whole of you. Body and soul with him in hell. When he comes saying, look, you've
been reared in the Christian home. You sit under this preaching
that assumes all the time that what God says is clear and what
God says is true. You are indeed stamped with immortality. You will live somewhere in body,
soul, existence forever. God is the creator and the lawgiver
and the judge. It is clear. Christ is the only way to life
and salvation. Except you repent, you shall
perish. He that believes not shall be
damned. On the great issues of who am
I? Why am I here? Why do I do what I do? And you
are told from a Bible that is true and clear. You do what you
do because you are what you are. That is a sinner. As we read
in Psalm 51, Behold, I was shaped in iniquity. And in sin did my
mother conceive me. The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? For from within,
Jesus said, out of the heart, proceed. And he lists every form
of sin. What happens to me when I die?
Where will the world eventually end up? All of the great issues
answered by the scriptures truthfully And with clarity, the devil's
murder weapon is to come and raise a gray question mark. Indeed, has God really said it? My dear listener, young or old,
if you do not see in that gray question mark painted over any
statement of God's Word, the knife dripping with the blood
of human souls, May God have mercy upon you. He is a murderer, and his murder
weapon is the lie, and his ancient lie is God's word. May not be as clear as you thought
it was, or as true and as trustworthy as you believed it to be. The
truth is, hear the words of Jesus, Though heaven and earth pass
away, my word shall never pass away. The words that I speak
unto you are spirit and are life. Jesus speaking through the psalmist,
your word, is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Jesus' own words in John 17,
17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. For the psalmist, the sum of
your word is truth. Put all of God's words from Genesis
to Revelation in a column. Draw the line and say, what is
their sum? One word, truth. Not truth plus. Men's ideas, truth plots, men's
conjectures, truth plots, ancient religions, prejudices, and ignorance. No! The sum of your word is truth. Whenever that gray question mark
is raised, see the blood-dripped dagger aimed at your heart. He is a murderer, and a liar,
and he's been such from the beginning. Then there is the second lie
that he tells our first mother. Look at the passage again, verses
3 and 4. Eve responds, of the fruit of
the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the
tree that is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you
shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you
die. Now the commentators make a great to-do about the fact
that those words, neither shall you touch it, are not found in
the original prohibition given to Adam as recorded in chapter
2 and verse 17. What is recorded by Moses of
God's word directly to Adam, verse 16 and 17, the Lord God
commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you
may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat thereof
you shall surely die. Now Eve says, well this is what
God said, you shall not touch it as well as eat of it. Was
she adding to God's word? I don't know. She obviously received
this prohibition through the mediation of Adam, her head.
This was spoken directly and immediately to Adam. And as the
head and guide and protector and spiritual instructor of his
wife Eve, he may have said, As an implication, if God says,
don't eat of it, eat! God's telling us, don't touch
it. You don't touch it, you ain't gonna eat of it. Unless you tie
your hands behind your back like ducking for apples in a barrel.
If you don't take it, you won't eat it. So perhaps she extrapolated
from the clear word of God given to Adam, perhaps Adam, by way
of just and necessary deduction. I don't know, but this much is
clear. When she states the essence of
God's prohibition, notice how the serpent, the devil, responds.
And the serpent said unto the woman, verse 4, You shall not
surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, you shall be as God, knowing good
and evil. What is the lie here? Well, I
want to show that the lie is just this. The devil proposes
to Eve, God's presented himself as your great benefactor. He
has conned you into, Eve, into thinking all that he's given
you, all that he has said is nothing but the overflow of his
goodness and his love and his kindness. But I've got the inside
track. God's really mean and his will
is unreasonable and restrictive. God is mean. His will is really
mean. He's mean. His will is unreasonable
and restrictive. You see, Eve, God has said to
you, to eat is to destroy yourself. Isn't that what Adam says, God
says? You shall not eat of it, nor
touch it. We'll leave that suspended. Lest
you die, God's told you, to eat of it is to destroy yourself.
But Eve, I've got the inside track. To eat is to fulfill yourself. That's what he said. You want real fulfillment? God's
put you on this lower scale of being, and he's conned you into
thinking that's for your good. And he said, be content to keep
in your lower scale of being. Oh yes, you are made in image
of God, and in image of God you must remain joyfully, voluntarily,
under the preceptive will of God, but that's not for your
good, because God's got a narrow heart, and a mean spirit, and
His will is unreasonable and restrictive. Eve, fulfill yourself. Become as God. There's something
to know which God knows that you don't know and which I know
that if you know, it will be true self-actualization. Sound contemporary? You'll have
a new level of self-esteem, Eve. You look in the mirror now and
what do you see? Image of God. I want to fix you up so when
you look in the mirror you'll see God Himself. I mean there's
a whole new scale. of self-actualization, of self-fulfillment. He don't believe God. He is mean. His will is unreasonable
and restricted. How can it be reasonable that
the tree should be there and it should look so good and apparently
would taste so good if God were all he's made himself out to
be? Why forbid that tree of all trees. Subsequent verses say,
it did look pretty good. If it was some kind of shriveled,
gnarled, rotten looking thing, there'd be no temptation. It
had the appearance of something that would indeed be good. Why
did God say, of all the trees you may free me, but not that
one? If he's a good God, as he made himself out to be, and if
he's a good God, his heart is not narrow, Why would he restrict
us that tree which has such nice looking fruit? And according
to this talking serpent, I'll come to a new level of experienced
fulfillment and a new level of being. I'll be as God, no longer
just image of God, but as God. Now at this point, what should
Eve have said? He should have turned to the
serpent if she carried any dialogue at all and said, look, talking
serpent, the God that made me and placed me in this perfect
environment gave me a perfect husband and has surrounded me
in the midst of perfect delight in himself. He has proven in
every way the largeness of his heart and the goodness and beneficence
of his own disposition toward me. All that I see is the goodness
of God. I am buried under his goodness. She should have again engaged
in little poetic license and said to the serpent, God's will
is good. His ways are right. Go hence, lying serpent. Get out of my sight. But she
didn't do that. She didn't do that. She believed
the lie. And now the dagger was no longer
in its point at her heart. It's plunged into her heart. And that's precisely the way
the devil murders souls. Some of you sitting in this very
place. And the law of God speaks and says, here's the way of blessedness.
Psalm 1, blessed, blessed, perfectly happy, fulfilled, contented,
fullness of life and all that that means. Oh, the blessedness
of the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, doesn't
frame his life by what the ungodly say is fulfillment and life with
a capital L. He walks not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the
seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law
of the Lord, and on his law that he meditate day and night, he
shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring
forth his fruit, and his seed, and whatsoever he does shall
prosper. God says the way of obedience
to his law is the way of blessedness. You know what the devil says?
God's pulling a con job on you. God's law with it, thou shalt
and thou shalt not, is the reflection of a mean God whose will is unreasonable
and restrictive. Why should God give you eyes
that can see things and a temperament that can enjoy things and then
say, you shall not covet, be content with what I've given
you? That's restrictive. Why should he give you sexual
powers and appetites and capacities for enjoyment at so many of your
nerve endings, and then say, you've got to keep that wall
shut up like a walled garden until your wedding night, and
from there on in with the wife of your youth alone. You shall
not commit adultery, and all adulterers shall be cast into
hell. You want any greater proof that
God's mean? Look at that. You hear the echoes of Eden?
Why would the fruit look so good? If God's good, why does he say
that fruit's a no-no? Why should you begin to sense
and feel your sexual awareness and drives and capacities and
not be able to just let them rip? If God's good, God is kind. If God's will is beneficent.
That's why some of you indulge in personal private, sexual,
auto-erotic perversion. You don't believe God's word.
You believe the devil's lie. That's why some of you indulge
in fantasies, known only to you and God, that Jesus knows them,
and he says the willful thought of the mind is the violation
of the law, because you really believe the devil's lie, that
to remain chaste In body, in secret, in mind! It's restrictive. It's unreasonable! Keep a whole
day and seven unto God. Sunday's got to be at least half
Sunday. And he has so propagated that
lie that half of evangelical Christendom now is like the Roman
Catholics. You can go to church on Saturday
night so all of Sunday can be Sunday. You've got 8 o'clock
services in the morning so people can have the day for Sunday.
Sunday night services dropping like flies across our country. Why? The devils lie. What could
be more burdensome than a whole day unto God? Oh, but I'm going
to heaven when I die and I'm going to enjoy God forever. But
one day is too much here on earth. What a bunch of nonsense. The devil's lie. You go right
through all the commandments, and the devil says of every one
of them, they were a reflection of a mean, tight-fisted, unreasonable
God. If you believe that lie and go
on wantonly and deliberately in the violation of God's law,
you're a living proof that he's a liar and a murderer from the
beginning. third lie of the devil and here
he gets very bold with Eve he comes and says in now a flat
out contradiction of God in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 4 and the
serpent said unto the woman you shall not surely die She had
it straight when she said, in the day that we eat, dying, we
shall die. That's what God said. Sin, Adam
and Eve, and you'll pay the consequences. Sin will be your voluntary choice. The consequences will be the
inevitable result. In the day you eat, you shall
die. The devil comes and says, you
shall not surely die. You can sin and get away with
it. That's his line. Do you believe
for a moment that if Eve really believed at this point God's
word that to eat of that fruit would be to go into something
horrific called death? To be separated from the God
whose presence and communion was her highest delight? to have
her husband changed from a perfectly loving, sensitive, caring, compassionate
husband into an insensitive, cruel, accusing man, the woman
you gave me, God. You blew it, God, what did you
give me this creature for? That's death. death of soul cut
off from God and reflecting the image of God in human relationships
cut off from the very life of the soul communion with God and
then physical death and then eternal death Eve had to block
off from her mind with the devil's lie the pressure of God's truth
in the day you eat you'll die the devil's lie penetrated her
ear and her soul you shall not surely die the only reason she
was willing to take the risk That there might be something
in that truth to bring her to greater self-fulfillment. She
believed the devil's lie. You can deliberately sin and
get away with it. And that's exactly, exactly what
he's saying to some of you sitting here tonight. The truth is, she
and Adam did die. The most tragic description of
that immediate spiritual death is found in this very passage.
Verse seven, the eyes of them both were open. They knew that
they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. Now listen to this. One of the
saddest verses in all of the Bible. And they heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
Apparently God came to them in what the Bible scholars call
a theophany, a physical manifestation of His presence. And in the cool
of the day, when the day's labors would ordinarily be done, and
God comes to hold peculiar communion with those made to know Him,
to find a light in Him, whereas Adam and Eve's pulse would have
increased and their breath become short with holy anxiety when
they heard whatever rustling there was that indicated the
approach of God in this visible manifestation. Their hearts would
leap to meet Him long before their feet could run to greet
Him. But now what do they do? Look at this sad, sad record.
And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Does it make you want to weep?
Hiding, running from this God whose goodness, whose love, whose
kindness is funneled in concentrated waves into their very being,
into their environment, into their relationship. Adam doesn't
even know what's lacking, and God says it's not good for the
man to be alone. He looks at all the animals,
he analyzes their structure and function in God's world, and
he gives a name appropriate to the animal. But the scripture
says there was not found in any of those beasts a helper answering
to his need. He couldn't put his arms around
the horse after he named it and say, isn't God good to make you
a horse? All the horse could do is look
at him and whinny. And when he stooped down to stroke
a little cat, if there were such a thing in the garden, and it
purred and rubbed against his leg, Adam might say, that feels
nice, but I can't snuggle up to you at night when I go to
bed. He didn't know what was lacking.
God did. The only thing that wasn't good was the man alone.
And God said, I, I will make a helper answering to his need.
And he put Adam to sleep. takes a rib, forms the woman,
brings her to the man, and he looks upon her, and he says,
this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She's not
me, but she's like me. She's from me, and she's brought
to me. And he speaks, and her eyes light
up, and she responds with words. And Adam says, ah, now I know
what was lacking. God's brought me here. And in
the embrace of Adam, he finds her true identity as Eve, Icha,
taken from man, Ich, Ich, Icha, and the two were made one. And
God performs the wedding ceremony. If you have any ounce of romanticism,
you read Milton's Paradise Lost in the section on their wedding
night in Eden. If that doesn't thrill you, you
are a hopeless, unromantic dud. Well, enough for promoting Milton. Now the devil comes and says,
you shall not surely die. There's something new to be had.
She believes the devil's lie. And that God who had showered
his goodness upon them, who had manifested it, they run from
him. That's enough to make angels
weep. They run from him. Why? Because
they now know that they've stained and defiled their souls. And
in a way I cannot explain or fully fathom, it is somehow sacramentally
and physically discovered in their nakedness, which before
was their shameless delight. If you have any problem with
Biblical holy eroticism, read the creation account. It closes
in chapter 2 with the man and his wife both naked and unashamed. in the embrace of each other
and in the larger embrace of their God. And now they're ashamed
before one another and they run from their God. That's death.
That's why some of you are living, walking, dead men and women,
boys and girls, because you have an aversion to God, a carnal
mind, His enmity against God. It is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can it be. Romans 8, 7, Romans 3, 10.
None righteous, no, not one. There's none that understand
it. There's none that seeks after God. Think of it. None who seeks
after God. Made for God. Made with a capacity
to know Him, delight in Him, to give Him pleasure. That's
the devil's lie. He believed that you can deliberately
sin and get away with it. God said if you sin, you'll suffer
the consequences. you shall die. And they died
spiritually. Eventually they died literally
and physically. Read Genesis chapter 5. What a sad chapter. So and so
lived hundreds of years and he died. And so and so lived and
he died. And every time you read the words,
and he died. See the unwritten parenthesis. The devil is a liar. The devil
is a liar. Every tombstone It's an eloquent
voice saying, devil, you're a liar. Devil, you're a liar. The truth
is what God said to Adam and Eve in Eden. He says to you and
to me, in the day you eat, you'll surely die. God says in Ezekiel
18, for the soul that sinneth, it shall die. God says in Proverbs
28, 13, He that covers his sin shall not prosper. In the book
of Deuteronomy, God says, Be sure your sin will find you out. Romans 6, 23, The wages of sin
is death. You cannot deliberately sin and
get away with it. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Be sure your sin will find you out. The wages of sin is
death. He that covers his sin shall
not prosper. That's God's word. God is serious. And all the devil's lies cannot
neutralize the truth of God. And some of you sit here thinking
you're going to outfox God. What stupidity. You lie dead
at the devil's feet. A monument to the conquest of
his lie. Mom and dad don't know my sin.
I've conned mom, I've conned dad, I've conned my teacher.
Nobody sees, nobody knows. You may effectively cover it
from the sight of every man, woman, boy or girl, but a day
is coming when my Bible says, the things that are done in secret
shall be proclaimed from the housetops Paul says in Romans
2.16, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according
to my gospel. The devil's lie. The devil's
lie. Then there's another lie that
the devil seeks to use as a murder weapon, not only God's word may
not be clear or true. God's mean in his will is unreasonable
and restrictive. You can deliberately sin and
get away with it. But the devil says to some of
you, and here's where I'm delighted to expose his wicked, damning,
killing lie. You've sinned too much and too
long for God to forgive you and loose you from the power of sin
in the devil. You've sinned too much and too
long for God to forgive you and to loose you from the power of
sin in the devil. You see, the devil is utterly
unscrupulous. Liars are unscrupulous. He first
of all comes and says, look, to sin is a little thing. Go
ahead and sin. God will forgive you. Then after you sin, what
does the devil do? When you know your sin is known
and you begin to take it seriously, you begin to seek the Lord. The
same devil who said, oh, Just sin, God will forgive you. Easy
thing. Christ died, sin's already, payment's made. You just go to
Christ, He'll forgive you. So you believe His lie and you
sin. And then you come into blessed be God and awareness. Sin is
not a little thing. It brings the frown of God and
the wrath of God. And it caused the lifeblood of
the Son of God to be poured out on the cross. You begin to take
all that gospel reality seriously. That though God has a controversy
with you, He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son. That whosoever believes in Him
shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And God presents Himself
as a God with outstretched hands, saying, In Christ come to me,
Him that comes to me, I'll in no wise cast out. You know what
the devil says? You've sinned too much and too
long. There's no mercy for you. The same devil that said, Ha!
There's mercy. Sin! You've sinned. Now he comes
and says, there's no mercy. He'll do anything to take you
away from God and Christ, and then he'll do anything to keep
you from going back to God through Christ. You got that? He'll do anything to get you
to go away from God and Christ. And when God through His Spirit
and the Word and the enlivening of your conscience begins to
disturb you, then the devil comes and says, you can't go to God
through Christ, you've sinned too much, you've sinned too long. And there are few things more
grievous. than the person locked in a prison
of unbelieving despair, who knows he or she is a sinner, conscious
of the change. Every motion they make, they
hear their change, clanging in their own ears. And the devil
says, But what does Christ, who is the truth, say? Well, right
in this eighth chapter of John, he says, Whoever commits sin
is the slave of sin, but whom the Son sets free is free indeed. And one of my most favorite verses
in the Bible, in Matthew chapter 12, the passage that disturbs
people unnecessarily about the unpardonable sin, contains one
of those marvelous gospel promises in all of the Bible, Matthew
chapter 12 and verse 31, Therefore, Jesus speaking, I say unto you,
every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. Now, what have you done that
doesn't fit there? Oh, but you say I've been an
inveterate, pathological liar. I've lied to my mom, to my dad,
to anything that walks and breathes and has ears. every sin. Yes, but I've been a slave of
lust. I'm ashamed of all the thoughts
that go like evil ghosts to my mind and all the pictures embedded
on the walls of my mind and my soul. Every sin shall be forgotten. I've denied nature. I've done
that which is against nature. As a woman, I've given myself
to sinful passions to be satisfied with another woman. As a man,
I've done that which is unnatural and given myself to illicit romantic
attachments and physical involvement with another man. How can I be
forgiven every sin? Every sin, my dear friend, every
sin shall be forgiven. But you say, I've blasphemed,
not openly, but in my heart. Pastor Martin, I've sat there
when you've been preaching, and I've said in my spirit, blasphemous
words in my heart. I've damned your God and your
Christ. I've blasphemed in my heart.
Listen to Jesus' words. Every sin and every blasphemy
shall be forgiven. Every sin, every blasphemy, Don't
believe the devil's lie. There's only one blasphemy that
is unforgivable. That's blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit. And that's not saying, God damn
the Holy Spirit. That is not what that is. You
read in the context. That was a settled determination
on the part of these Jewish leaders who could not deny that Jesus
was doing mighty works. And he says, I do them by the
finger of God. And they said, no, you're in
cahoots with the devil. And they didn't say it as a passing
thought. They said it as the settled disposition
of their hearts. That is blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit as a steady state disposition of determination
to say Jesus Christ is in cahoots with the devil. That's not the
disposition of your heart. You're not in that category.
You're in this category. Every sin and every blasphemy,
the every carries over to the compound subject. Every sin and
every blasphemy shall be forgiven. Oh, but Pastor Martin, you don't
know. I don't care to know what you've done. Jesus, who said
every sin and every blasphemy, he knew it. And he covers it
with this word. The devil's a liar. You see,
the last thing He wants is to have you, with all of those sins
and all of those blasphemies, sitting here, praising the God
of grace, and saying, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that
saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see. The devil hates the God of grace. He hated him in the garden of
Eden. He hates him now and he'll hate him when he's burning in
hell with all who believed his murderous lies and refused to
repent of them and embrace Jesus and his word of truth. He's a
liar. You have not sinned so much. that your sin goes beyond the
power of His blood to cleanse, the liberating strength of His
grace. Think of that gathering demoniac. So invaded and possessed by the
devil, when you read those words and take them at face value,
no one could find a chain thick enough and big enough and enough
of them to bind it. This man would make the incredible
hulk look like a 98-pound weakling. He broke not paper-mache chains
for the camera, but real chains. The powers of darkness and sorrow
possessed him. What is your name? We are Legion. There were enough of them to
possess at least 2,000 pigs. And they said he sat closed and in
his right mind. And he said, Jesus, I want to
go with you. He said, no, you go back. You tell them what great
things He's done for you. My friend, don't believe the
devil's lie and keep it a distance from Christ. You've already believed
enough of the devil's lie. You believe the devil's lie that
maybe God's Word was not true and clear, and you believe this
lie that God was mean and His will unreasonable and restricted.
You believe this lie that you could deliberately sin and get
away with it. Don't believe his lie that you've sinned too much
or too greatly. And put yourself beyond the grace
and power of Jesus. As the devils lie to keep you
from going to God through Christ. When he managed to estrange our
first parents from God, his great determination was now, I'll keep
them. Do you know what God did later
in this chapter? And I want us to turn there in
closing. I want you to turn to the latter part of Genesis 3.
Man had aligned himself with the devil. He was in league with
his lies. Spiritually dead. And look what
God does. He comes seeking the man and
the woman. He deals with them not only in
judgment, but in mercy. And look at verse 15 of chapter
3. He says, I will put enmity. I will put warfare between you,
that is the serpent, and the woman, and between your seed
and her seed. What had happened? There was
now amity between the woman and the serpent. She aligned herself
with the devil. She believed his lies. She was
now his child, the lust of her father. It was her will to do.
God could have taken his hands off and said, all right, Eve
and Adam, you made your choice to live with it. I'll go to another. universe. And I'll create another
pair. And I'll populate another world
in pristine righteousness. No, God didn't do it. God says,
I'll break up the alignments you and the devil have made.
You talk about sovereign grace. I, God says, will put enmity.
There's now enmity, friendship between the woman and the man
and the devil. And God says, I'm going to bust up this friendship.
I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman. between her
seed and your seed and I'm going to be the conqueror in the enmity
that I inject into the human race the seed of the woman is
going to crush your head serpent now in the process you're going
to be able to crush his heel he'll crush your head that's
the first gospel promise and that promise has been and is
being and shall continue to be fulfilled until all the seed
of the seed of the woman are gathered out of every kindred,
tribe, and tongue, and nation, and are gathered before the throne
in the new heavens and the new earth, and sing worthy is the
Lamb that was slain to receive glory, and power, and riches,
and wisdom, and might, and every created thing, John says, I heard,
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, saying, Blessing and
glory and honor and power. And the devil that deceived them,
John said, was cast into the lake of fire. And whosoever was
not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake
of fire. For there shall be weeping and
wailing and gnashing of teeth. smoke of their torment goes up
forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night. Those are the words of God. We
come back to John 8, 44. He was a murderer from the beginning. He's a liar and he abhorred not
in the truth these four murderous lies of the devil. Have you been
believing them? May God grant that this night
you'll turn away from the devil and his lies and embrace him
who is the truth and all of the truth that radiates from his
person and his lips and supremely in his gospel. Dear children,
dear children, the devil means business with you. And the only
way to escape him is to mean business with Christ. Dear young
adults, on the threshold of your prime years if the Lord spares
you. Jesus said, the thief, referring
to the devil, comes not but for to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And the devil holds out before
you know the way of God's will and God's Word. It's restrictive
and narrow and you've got to fulfill yourself in my way. It's a lie. It's a lie. My friends in high school, when
God by grace captured me, said, poor Al. My nickname then was
Ab. For some reason they called me
Abbott. I don't know. I'm short for Ab. Look at all the fun you're
missing. We're going to do this. We're
going to do that. And here you are, reading your Bible, passing
out tracts, preaching on the street corner. You won't do this.
You won't do that. I wish I could gather them all
together and sit them down here tonight and look them straight
in the eye. For example, Sam's throwing my social security checks
at me. I'm joining, I have joined the
Over the Hill gang. Look back over almost 50 years,
I can say that my master's yoke has been easy and his burden
has been light. His commitments have not been
brief. He's been kind to me. Can you say that of your master?
and see their sunken eyeballs and the haunting look of disappointed
dreams and shattered marriages and wrecked lives. The devil
has been cruel to them. Christ has been gracious to me.
He is a gracious Savior. That English teacher that shook
her head when I told her that I felt God's hand was on me to
preach the gospel, I can still see her standing there With her
tailored suit, shaking her head, Albert, what a waste. What a
waste. I'm sure she's dead now. I wish
I could bring her back from where she is if she didn't repent and
say, it's been no waste. It's been no waste. Dear children,
I plead with you tonight. Don't believe the devil's lies.
He's out to kill you, to destroy you. I plead with you. I plead with you. If I never
plead again, may my words ring in the chambers of your heart.
And Jesus said, I'm come that you might have life and have
it more abundantly. And you who are God's children,
who may have fallen by a temporary lapse of spiritual sanity in
believing some lie of the devil. That's what David did. He looked
at Bathsheba's flesh and he said, there's something God's holding
back from me to be found in Bathsheba's flesh. And what did it bring
him? It brought him hands dripping
with blood. He murdered her husband. It brought
in his family becoming a wreckage. and brought him to go to his
grave cut off at the knees. He'd lost the conscience of all
who knew him. He went to his grave a battered,
broken, forgiven, cleansed, yes, but a battered and broken man
because he believed the devil's lie. A child of God enmeshed
in some wretched sin. Don't, don't go out of here tonight
clinging to the lie. There's something to be had in
that sin that is not to be found in Christ and in the life of
holiness and purity. Come clean. Come clean. Few things more grievous for
a pastor than to try to help someone get extricated from sin
that will ruin their testimony and grieve the Spirit and to
have them play cat and mouse with you and fight you. like
you're their enemy, or not your enemy. We want to see you go
to heaven with all the bells ringing. We don't want to see
you go like David, crippled and cut off at the knees. You get
there, yes. We want to see you go like others
who are scattered throughout the pages of the Bible, walking
with uprightness and integrity. Let's pray. Our Father, how we thank You
for Your Word. We thank You for our Lord Jesus.
We thank You that He speaks only words of truth. And how we beg
of You, Lord, were our desires the measure of Your working,
none would leave this place enmeshed in the devil's lies. But Father,
we acknowledge our desires cannot open blinded eyes and quicken
the dead. But you can, and we beg of you
that you will. O Lord, we have not preached
simply to know the joy of speaking your words. We long to see fruit
from our labors this night. Surely, Lord, it would not please
you that tonight's ministry would only result in further hardness
of heart and increased damnation. In the everlasting burnings,
O God, make your truth the savor of life unto life. We pray that
it will act as an immunizing power in our spiritual lives,
that when, as your children, the devil would whisper his lies,
we may face him with truth, and by your grace resist him steadfast
in the faith. Seal then your word, we plead,
for the glory and for the honor of your name. and the good of
our souls. Amen.