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All right, tonight I'd like to talk about, that's my segue into Satan and lies that he loves to preach. Satan is a preacher, Satan is a proclaimer, Satan never tires, he doesn't have a body so he doesn't need to tire, and he continues to flood the world with all kinds of lies.
Satan we believe is real, and he loves to tell things that are opposite to the truth of God. And so tonight I'd like to talk initially about Satan, and then some of his lies that he preaches, and then the truth, so we can understand what he's selling us and then we can combat that.
So, lies from Satan, Steve read this morning, John chapter 8, and I think I'd like you to have your Bible turn to John chapter 8, for those of you that missed that, I want to look at John 8, John 12, and John 14, as we talk a little bit about Satan first, some people think wrongly about Satan, therefore I want to clear that up, and then we'll talk about Satan's lies, and then God's truth.
So that'll be the message tonight, I just want you to be aware of his cunningness, so that you aren't taken by surprise. John chapter 8, verse 44, I won't tell you all the context of this, I'm just trying to show you that the Bible teaches that Satan is real, and here specifically, Jesus is going to teach that he believes in Satan.
Some people think it's a myth, and it's made up, I want you to know that Jesus believed in Satan, and if Jesus does, we obviously should. Jesus said to the religious leaders there, you are of your father the devil, and he said it in plural, ye are of your father the devil.
If you look at chapter 12, verse 31, again this is just a cursory overview, and I want to show you that Jesus thought Satan was real, and you ought to think he's real as well. Now is the judgment, John 12, verse 31, of this world, now shall the prince of this world, Satan, be cast out.
There's a conflict going on, and of course Jesus knew it, Satan and God. John 14, verse 30, here I have the King James Version, John 14, verse 30,. Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world comes, or cometh.
Paul, who can tell me a spot in the Pauline corpus, Pauline's writing, Paul's writings where he talks about Satan, using some term, maybe he doesn't say Satan, but he calls him something else. Bernard, Ephesians 6, good, and what does he call him?
Okay, prince of darkness, he also calls him prince of the power of the air in chapter 2, Paul believed in Satan, Jesus believed in Satan, can you think of a place in the writings of John the Apostle, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd John, where Jesus, apostle John, believes in Satan.
First John 3, 8, If you commit sin regularly, you are of the devil, because the devil sinned from what? From the beginning. James says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Peter, 1st Peter 5, 8, Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion.
Satan is a real being, affirmed by the New Testament writers, obviously, and we believe that at this church. He is known as the god of this age, 2nd Corinthians 4, the prince of the power of the air, as we just said in Ephesians 2, the prince of this world, John 16, Beelzebub are the prince of demons, Luke 11, and he has no body, does he?
He is a spirit, and he is a spirit that is true or false, omnipresent, he is present in every place all the time. No, he's not, can you think of any place, we don't have time to get into it very much, where in the Bible could you prove that Satan is not omnipresent, and that he's not every particular place?
Okay, excellent, and even there that might be some poetical language, but Daniel 9, 10, both of those chapters gives us an inkling that they've got to go, and they've got to travel from one place to another.
We know he's a fallen angel, and I found a list of things that Satan does, and here's the list from MacArthur, at least it's his language, listen to all the things that Satan does, tempts Eve, tempted Christ, perverts God's word, opposes God's work, hinders God's servants, hinders the gospel, ensnares the wicked, deceives the nations, disguises himself as an angel of light, contends with the angel Michael, instigates the fall of the human race, seeks to devour, accusing God's people, once had the power of death, and has the whole world lying in his power, and lastly, but sadly not least, he lies.
Tonight I'd like to go through some lies, and you could probably come up with your own list, if I said to you, give me some lies from Satan. There are many, aren't they, aren't there, tons of lies, and these are just some that I picked out, no particular reason, but I thought it would be good to deal with this topic tonight, lies and truth.
This all assumed by the way, it assumes that we believe in propositional truth, and we are not post-moderns, what is truth to you, all that is not right. First lie from Satan, Satan sells this lie, that there is plenty of time to get your house in order, that is to say for a believer or an unbeliever, you've got lots of times to find religion, lots of time to figure it all out, you don't have to get crazy religious now, just go ahead and wait, for the unbeliever it could be said to the unbeliever, why don't you wait until you have kids, then you can get religion, why don't you wait towards the end of your life, sow your oats now, be crazy now, and just deal with God before you die.
For the believers, they could also buy into the line that, I just would like to be safe from my sin, but I don't really want to be sold out to the Lord now, I'll wait till later, if I'm sold out to the Lord now, I might get shipped to Argentina, or you know, I almost said Atlanta, I don't know, maybe that's, you know, Bermuda, I don't know.
Let's turn our Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 3, Pastor Steve had just been there, but we'll just touch on this briefly, because Satan is selling this, wait till later, and he's also selling at the same time, nothing changes, nothing will change, there's nothing at the end of the world, there's no future judgment, so that shouldn't have to bother you at all, and 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 1, we see very quickly that time is running out.
I have a little hourglass in my office, and my mother gave it to me before she died, and she said, the next time someone comes in and says, Mike, could I just have 5 minutes of your time, you can just take that hourglass and flip it over.
Now that was a good mother, but that wasn't very pastoral of her, because you don't really want to come across in such a crass manner, but the hourglass is running, the sand is slowly coming out, and the world is going to end, no matter what anyone else says.
2 Peter 3 verse 1, look at the disdain these people have as Peter begins to proclaim the truth, this is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you, in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.
He said, beloved, I love you, I'm a pastor, I'm an apostle, and I really love you, and I want you to think properly, literally, I want you to have some wholesome thinking, a well-balanced diet of thinking is what I want you to have, and I've got to remind you, verse 2, that you should remember, this isn't new information, we just sometimes forget, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.
What in particular? Be careful about these scoffers who are laughing all the way to perdition, don't let them influence you. Verse 3, know this first of all, that in the last days, mockers, plural, will come with their mocking, what do mockers do?
They mock following after their own lusts. They are going to say, there's going to be no second coming, the time isn't running out, it's same old, same old, they just believe in the uniformity of the world, there's nothing to end, it's all of a big circle, and what happens in verse 4?
Here's what they say, where is the promise of his coming? I mean, it's been a long time since Jesus said he's going to come back, true? Two thousand years, he's not coming back, for ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.
The early church thought Jesus is going to come back any minute, and then generation after generation goes by, so Satan picks that up, and he has his false apostles who go around saying, it's never going to end, live it up, who cares?
Verse 5, for when they maintain this, it escapes their notice, they accidentally forget, literally, they willfully get, accidentally on purpose they forget, why? Because it doesn't sell, you can't influence people if you tell the truth that God's going to come back and judge you, and unless Jesus stands in your place, you are going to be undone.
They maintain this, it escapes their notice, that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago, the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded by water.
There was an overflowing, there was a cataclysm, that's the Greek word, catacludso, only referred to in the New Testament for Noah's flood. Did you know there are two different words for flood in the New Testament?
One is for Noah's flood, and another one is for always a lesser, more smaller flood. There's the universal flood, remember that day, and there are also words for other smaller floods. He's saying, there was a flood, the world was flooded by water.
Verse 7, but the present heavens and earth, by his word, first it's by his word, verse 5, that the heavens are created, it's by his word that he sends the flood, and there's going to be another flood coming, but it's not a flood of water, it's a flood of fire.
But the present heavens and earth, by his word, are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. We know there's never going to be a flood of water because there's a big bow, right?
What kind of bow do we see out in the sky? For the longest time, maybe you're all smarter than I am, but for the longest time I never really could figure out rain bow. How many people here are archers or have ever done archery?
That's the kind of bow we're talking about, and when you want to store your bow, you set it a certain way. If you want a bow, if I, how can I do this? I need some kind of, I need some kind of bat bow or something.
I'm just kidding. If the bow is curved this way, the arrow flies that way, yes? And so, what would you think if the rain bow was shaped like this up in the sky? God's aiming at you again. But if the bow looks like this, right, the string is down here, the actual bow, for the bow and arrow is shaped that way, what's it signifying?
What's it a good symbol of? God's not going to judge you with judgment anymore. The bow is put up and it's not going to be in use again. By the way, isn't it just like Satan to take one of the most beautiful symbols in all the world called a rain bow and then they slap it on the back of their cars to say homosexuality is righteous?
That is just like Satan. These people accidentally on purpose forget, so he says to his people, don't buy the lie. Verse 8, do not let this one fact escape your notice. If there's one thing that you remember, remember this, beloved, you can hear his pastoral tone.
With the Lord, one day is a thousand years, this is right from Psalm 90, and a thousand years is one day. You start buying into the four Ps of marketing of the world and Satan and the system, you start thinking like they do and then you're not thinking properly.
Look at everything from God's vantage point, Psalm 73, the world is a mess, the psalmist says, but then when I got and thought to myself, I'll look at things from God's perspective in heaven, everything looks clear.
Verse 9, the Lord isn't slow about his promise, as some count slowness, God orders time differently, but he's patient toward you believers, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
Don't think that people are saying, well, you know, God really doesn't keep his promises because he hasn't come back, and have you ever noticed some of these unbelievers will say things like, God, if you're really true, then why don't you strike me dead with lightning and then I might believe, but they taunt God and they're saying, God, you're impotent, you can't do anything to me.
By the way, not in the context of 2 Peter chapter 3, but that is in the context of Romans chapter 1, in the end days, in the really bad days, people are going to say, God, strike me down, and he doesn't strike down, because they've already received the judgment of God, and the judgment of God is they've got to go their own way.
God says, you don't care, I don't care, the worst judgment in all the Bible is, let him be alone. It is the wrath of abandonment, it is Ephraim loves her idols, let her alone, that's bad judgment. It's one thing if I said to a kid, you're going to get disciplined, wouldn't it be a lot worse if I said to the kid, get away from me, I don't want to deal with you at all, I abandon you, I make you an orphan.
The kid gets disciplined, he realizes, sorry Luke, she realizes, girls, that they're loved, but when it's, I don't care what you do, you don't care about me, I don't care about you, that is called the wrath of abandonment.
God's got a different vantage point, a different timetable. Time isn't the same, God is in time because of the incarnation, outside of time, transcended over time, but he's not late. I love it when Pastor Dave says, God is never late.
One of the lessons he's learned in the last 30 some years of being a Christian is, God is always on time. And here, the word is, if you have a MacArthur study Bible, that is, he's not loitering, are late.
God is not standing on the street corner someplace, down at the five and dime store, kind of wasting time with no purpose. Things are going right according to schedule. No matter what these mockers say, they conveniently forget things, but we know better.
He's waiting for, technically, we don't have time to get into this, I'm sure Pastor Steve discussed it as well, basically, here's what God's waiting for. He's waiting for the unregenerate elect to believe.
Obviously, we don't believe that everyone's going to be saved, so he can't be waiting for every person to believe because they all won't believe. So what is he doing? He's saying, I'm not going to come back yet because there are more people who are chosen by God and they will believe and I'm waiting for them to believe.
That's the goodness of God. God's delay isn't because he's impotent, God's delay is because he's good and he's gracious. But verse 10, the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up.
And that language there, that roaring, I don't know if you've ever seen a super hot fire and put certain kinds of wood in the hot fire and what does that wood do? It whistles and it sizzles and it makes certain sounds and you can hear the roar and you can also sometimes hear some kind of funny whistling and sizzling.
That's the exact kind of incineration language that God uses here. And everything's going to be gone. You know the little song, he's got the whole world in his hands? He's got the little bitty baby in his hands?
He does until that day where he just says, it's out of my hands and I let it go and off the molecules fly. All things were created by him and for him and in him, all things hold together until that day when he just lets it all go.
So for us, we don't want to buy the lie that says, you know, there's not going to be an end, there's no judgment coming. We know we will not receive the judgment. Jesus has paid for our sins, but we do believe that there is a reward one day for those who believe, don't we?
Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10 says that. So don't buy Satan's lie that Jesus is never coming back. Number two. All right, we're moving along. I was going to go pretty fast, but of course we're already, you know, 15 minutes a point.
That's kids, that means I'm getting four points done if I do that, right? Fifteen minutes a point. Satan's second lie. No one will ever know what you do in secret. No one will ever know what you do in dark, secret times.
Let's turn our Bibles to Proverbs chapter 5 to take a look at this. The context in Proverbs 5 is sexual sin, being captivated by one in an intimate setting, one who isn't your spouse. No one will know.
It's at night. No one can figure it out. I've got it all covered. That's a lie from Satan because for God, he sees and knows everything. Proverbs chapter 5 basically says, avoid sexual immorality, enjoy sexual morality.
And then it says at the very end, P .S., here's a little P .S., put this in your cap to always remember, God watches everything you do. He watches sexual immorality. He actually watches sexual morality.
It's an amazing thing to think on our wedding day, a couple could say, we can ask God for blessings before we join ourselves together and say, God, thank you. You watch, you endorse, you create, you make, you take joy in it.
Thank you for this gift. My wife or my husband. But God watches all this and if you take a look at Proverbs 5 .20, for why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
The dad is saying to the son, what are you thinking? What are you thinking doing that? Well, there's a reason why the dad says that, Solomon to his son. For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord and he watches all his paths.
Path in the Hebrew is a track that would be made through the woods or through a field because of constant use. Nothing escapes God's holy gaze. Hebrews talks about we're naked and open before God. Psalm, excuse me, 1 Samuel 2 .3, listen to this, boast no more very proudly.
Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth for the Lord is a God of knowledge and the Hebrew is the God of knowledges. He's a God of knowledges. He knows everything. He's perfectly acquainted with every detail.
His knowledge is perfect. Turn with me if you would to Proverbs 15 .3, just for a second. Proverbs 15 .3, I want to show you. Furthermore, that God sees everything and we ought not to buy into the lie that we can hide what we're doing.
Actually, this should end up comforting us as well because God's with us everywhere, but it also should make us be afraid of sin. Proverbs 15 .3, the eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good.
Verse 11 of the same chapter, Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord. How much more the hearts of men. God knows everything. Could the trees in the garden hide Adam and Eve when they sinned? No. Did anyone see Cain kill his brother Abel?
No, the Lord did. When Sarah was laughing in her tent, maybe others heard, but certainly God heard. When Achan stole, I always, when I was a kid, I was taught Achan was Achan to steal something. So that's how you remember that.
Achan stole and he covered it and hid it just perfectly. Who knew? Of course, God did. Fill in the blanks, congregation. Numbers 32 -23, be sure your sin will find you out. In today's vernacular, crime, sin does not pay.
Back to Proverbs 5. Let's finish that because it's an interesting chapter. Many people who try to sin, try to sin and run from God in the sexual arena, but God will not be mocked. And it says in Proverbs 5 .22, his own iniquities will capture the wicked and he will be held with the cords of his sin.
It is a principle in God's divine economy that many times the punishment for sin is what? Well, punishment, wages of sin is death, but the punishing instrument to punish sinners is more sin. Arnott said it is a self-acting apparatus.
And do you see the text there of his sin? He can thank himself. His own hands put the handcuffs on his own wrists as he was doing this sin. Sin becomes the instrument of punishing sinners. It doesn't relate perfectly, but maybe you can get the idea.
My father never did this to me, but I've heard of fathers who have. A son, you've disobeyed. A daughter, you disobeyed. I want you to go out to the backyard and I want you to cut a switch off the tree that I'm going to use on you.
That's the idea here. By the way, the poor kid doesn't know what to do because if he gets a little tiny flimsy one, he knows he's going to really get it. If he gets too big a one, he's in trouble. God knows everything you do like an open book.
He knows everything, everything actual, everything possible. Listen to what Tozer says. God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters. We think about language of computers, RAM, R-A-M, random what?
Access memory. You need to get four gigs of RAM now or you ain't nothing. What kind of random access memory does God have? Well, he has none because everything is instant and simultaneous. Listen to what Tozer said.
God knows instantly and effortlessly all matters and all matters. All mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones, dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven and hell.
End quote. He knows it all. Turn with me if you would to Psalm 139. This is meant to be more of an encouragement to you as a congregation. We want to run from sin because God would see it, but I also want you, since I'm on the topic of omniscience, God knowing, there's a real comfort to this as well.
Psalm 139, to the extent that God knows us, it is incredible, and I think you should be very thankful that God knows you like this. Psalm 139, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. You, God, search me and know me.
That word search is to seek and to explore. When I fly into Boston, Logan now, international flights especially, they have these little beagles, and the beagles are walking around, kind of canine units, but they're having beagles to sniff for what?
They're sniffing out, they're searching for drugs and illegal things. That's the idea here. God searches you out. He knows every little detail. He finds things out. Careful scrutiny. Spying, it's used in judges, spying out the land.
You've searched me, God, and look at verse 1, and you have known me. You know all about me. No recall, no memory, you know. God, you have known me. And he knows, number one, what you do, found in verse 2.
You do know when I sit down and when I rise up. When it comes to active life, rising up, he knows. Passive life, sitting down. Now, he knows. He knows when you're running and working, and he knows when you're lying on the hammock, sitting, resting, reclining, relaxing.
He knows it, and everything in between. He not only knows what you do, but he also knows what you think. Verse 2, you understand my thought from afar. You discern it. You understand who reads motives.
We get in a lot of troubles as husband and wives as we try to assume their motives. God is a motive reader. He knows intentions. He knows the intent of their heart. Jesus, Luke 11, knew their thoughts.
And look at what the text says. He knows our thoughts from what? From afar. He knows all about it. Henry Ward Beecher, not the best theologian, understood omniscience, though. Before men, we stand as glass beehives.
Interesting, but that's not God. He sees everything. Look it, he knows where you go. Verse 3, you scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. You know everything.
You've got it all figured out. And he even knows what you will say. Verse 4, even before there's a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all. I used to think people were smart based on how many languages they knew, and I'd go overseas to Europe and think, these guys know five or six languages.
Here, it's not necessarily languages. It's he knows what they're going to say ahead of time, all future words. Then lastly, verse 5, he knows what you need. Thou hast enclosed me behind and before and laid thy hand upon me.
It's protection. It's impressive, and the only response is praise. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high, I can't attain it. God sees everything you do. Number three, number three, this one's for Ray.
Number three. Third lie from Satan. Heaven is not a real place. That's the lie. Heaven is a real place. Let's turn our Bibles to John 14. Satan wants you to think it's false hope. It's created in your mind, as I talked about this morning, from some kind of reptilian brain mind that you might have.
Just some kind of pie in the sky, false hope. And we would affirm that because, of course, Paul said in Philippians 1 .21, for me to live is Christ and to die is sleep. For me to live is Christ and to die is reincarnation.
For me to live is Christ and for me to die is gain. Can you imagine? I've never thought about this until Piper talked about it. The best that you have on earth. How about a wife? How about kids? How about enjoyment in a local church fellowship?
The best you have on earth compared to heaven, you're gonna look at the best you've got on earth and say, this one that I see face to face in heaven, Christ Jesus, makes what I have on earth, what? Gain.
It's gain. When I close my mother's eyes, as she has dead, died, gone out of the world, it's time for the morning to begin, I close her eyes and I think to myself, for her, gain. Now, if heaven is just made up, Jesus is a liar.
John 14, one, let not your heart be troubled, but believe in God, believe also in me and all my lies. See, it just doesn't make any sense. In my father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may also be. Jesus says there is a heaven. Revelation chapter 21, you don't have to go there, but it talks about this great new holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
Hebrews chapter 12, the heavenly Jerusalem. It is a glorious city, a heavenly city, a protected city. 1 Thessalonians 4, 17. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
There's intimate fellowship, wonderful fellowship in heaven. By the way, the Bible teaches that in heaven, you will be doing things. You'll be, number one, worshiping in heaven. Number two, what would you be doing?
You'll have fellowship in heaven. And number three, you'll be serving. That is a far cry from Sir David Wilcox of Cambridge, who wanted to be buried with a pair of earplugs in his ears. He's dead, he's got earplugs.
Why? Quote, while he was alive, he said, in case the heavenly choirs are singing everlastingly, not in tune. So without saying much more, if Satan is going around, Jesus says it's a real place, then of course Satan is going to be saying the opposite.
All right, number four, how we doing? Okay, we're smoking now. Four done. Got about 18 to go. All right, let's go. Number four, lie number four that Satan sells. Money makes the world go round. Now, let me say this first of all.
I'm glad for rich Christians. Abraham, I don't call him a Christian. I mean, he's a saint. Lydia, Phoebe, Priscilla, Aquila, Gaius, that's not the issue. H. Jowett once said, the real measure of our wealth is how much we would be worth if we lost all our money.
Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter six for a moment. And I want you to know that maybe the world revolves around money, but we as Christians ought not to, and we ought to see through money. It is a good servant, but it is a horrible master.
And everyone in this room, including me, can be tempted by the wrong way to think of money. And so basically, we've seen this in Matthew chapter six, when we were in Matthew six, four years ago or so, I don't know.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Oh, I thought there's no heaven. Of course there's heaven.
Where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We are knowledgeable to the fact that money isn't the problem, but what is?
The love of money. It doesn't profit anyone anything if they gain the whole world and loses their soul. Mark chapter eight. From where is this verse cited? Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare.
By the way, this is what I want. This is the new lottery banner. This is what for the new lottery banner, I want them to put everywhere, all the quick shops and all the Cumberland farms and all those.
This is how they're gonna sell their new lottery tickets. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and disaster. Can you imagine?
You want to get rich? Sadly, I'd like to be rich until I realized, you know, the more I get rich, nine times out of 10 people then do not depend on who the Lord is. The text goes on. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.
And some by longing for money have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang. Where's that verse found? First Timothy chapter six, verse nine and 10. Reminds me of Hosea 13.
Being satisfied, their heart became proud, therefore they forgot me. Of course we need money, but we need to know that no Christian is immune from mammon and its deadliness. All right, number five. All right, we're on a roll now.
Number five, God loves everyone unconditionally. That's the fifth lie from Satan. God loves everyone unconditionally. If you don't like this one, you can blame Steve because he emailed me this one. I said, Steve, give me your top 10 list.
He gave me about 14. God loves everyone unconditionally. There's different kinds of love, and you need to know that. God loves all his creation, all his people that he has created, he loves them. For God so loved the world, mankind, humanity, he sent Jesus on a rescue mission.
But there's a special kind of love, and that is the love for God's chosen people. That is the love for God's elect. After all, you don't say that I'm some kind of ogre because I love the ladies in this church, but I have a special love for my bride, do you?
I hope not. It's a different kind, and it's the same thing. When we go tell people, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and they are unbelievers, friends, we're sending the wrong signals.
We could say, God with his common grace, and Matthew has given you food, sunshine. Wasn't that a beautiful day today? Beautiful day. Do you know, unbelievers had a beautiful day today too, at least with the climate, the sun, and they ate good food, and they did all those kinds of things.
God is such a giver, he's given you common love, a common grace, a common mercy. But there's a special love reserved for the elect, for the ones that Jesus died. And we have to be careful that we don't run up to sinners who are living with their girlfriend and say, God really loves you, because if you're a smart sinner and you're told that, what do you do?
I'm golden. I'm living in sin, God loves me anyway. He loves me, he's got a wonderful plan. You know, when God looked at me and made his day, and everything's fine, and it's just all wrong. I think that sign is still up, isn't it, Dave?
When God looked at you, he smiled, or something, when he first laid eyes on you, he smiled. Let's turn to Romans chapter five just quickly to make sure we see that as there are different Greek words for love, eros, erotic, phileo, brotherly love, agape, self-sacrificial love, storge, family love, so too we have to think about love properly.
And so what I'd like you to do someday, if you'd like to get into this more, read D .A. Carson's book called The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, and it will help you see different kinds of love in the scripture.
And so I want you to know that God's creative love for everyone is unconditional, but God's special, saving, redemptive, elective love is conditioned on those who in faith turn away from themselves and turn towards the only sin bearer, Christ Jesus, because if you don't do that, there's going to be a day that common grace is over, and then there's going to be a horrible day to pay under God's wrath.
And so you can't say, even if you disagree with me for a moment, in hell, God still loves everyone. He loves those who are in hell. Friends, you've got to figure out something, some other category in your mind, because you have to realize there's a love of God now as a creator would love his creation, but then his love has a limit, and then there's going to be that payday one day.
And Romans chapter five, when you read the language, I want you to make sure you read this language and say to yourself, he's not talking about humanity here necessarily, he's talking about those who are in Christ, who say they have no righteousness, they've received the righteousness of another, and they are justified.
Look at verse one of chapter five. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Who's the we? It's not everyone, it's the Christians. These Christians currently have a peace, not a peaceful feeling, but peace with God.
God no longer is at war with us. There's been a treaty, there's been a truce, and Jesus is the one who has enacted that. We've got an introduction by faith into this grace. Verse two, it's all talking language of Christians.
Verse three, but we also exalt in tribulations. Only Christians can do that. Verse six, the context is for Christians, for while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. Then down in verse eight, God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
I think it's a lie from Satan when he says, God loves everyone unconditionally, and just stay as you are. There's a love of God for His creation, which is different than a love of God for His bride. All right, let's see, how are we doing for time?
We'll just do maybe a couple more. All right, let's do just a fun one, just because I have to do it. It wouldn't be me if I didn't. I know we have some visitors, and so we always like to just challenge them and blow their minds too.
So let's turn our Bible to 2 Timothy. A lie from Satan is, maybe it's a lie from our own gizzard more than it is Satan, and that is, unbelieving man has free will. I'll only look at two verses, and then we'll move on.
All this kind of free will spouting, frankly, if you have the right definition of free will, I might go along with it. You're free to do whatever your nature will allow, but I want you to know very quickly, and this has a tie in with Satan very, very directly, 2 Timothy chapter two.
I want you to know that Satan is enslaving people's minds, but they think they have a free will. What's so bad about that? Can you imagine? It's one thing to be enslaved. It's another thing to be enslaved, and you think you're free.
Paul says to Timothy the elder, verse 24, of 2 Timothy two, the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth.
And when God does that, here's the good thing, verse 26, and they may come to their senses, and escape from the snare of the devil. Tell me something about someone who is not coming to their senses, who is in the snare of devil, and I'll show you somebody who this last phrase addresses.
Having been held captive by Satan to do Satan's will. You ever play chess? What do you do with the pawns? Well, you do kind of all things with the pawns, but here, these poor people, earned by their own sin certainly, but duped by Satan, think they're free to do whatever they want, but they're slaves to sin.
All right, number, whatever number I'm on, six. Satan's lie, I think we might wrap it up with this one. Is this number seven? Okay, who said seven? You did, good. You taking notes? Good, all right, thanks.
Who's your dad? As I told the new member, the new visitor class, I tell my kids, you take notes, I give you money. You take notes that are reproducible, every few that you do, you get two bucks. I went and bought them notebooks and all that, so they're here trying to earn money, among other things.
They think they're getting money, and the joke's on them, because they're learning the Bible, and that's what we're after. Luke is almost, how many books are you away from getting daddy to pay you the $100 for reading through the entire Bible?
One book away, which one, Isaiah? Isaiah to go for the $100 score. That is excellent. Whatever the next lie is. Fathers are nincompoops. The world sells, and every time you turn on the TV, that the fathers are complete idiots.
The fathers are the ones that can't figure anything out. It's the fathers that are wrong. Satan attacks the family, and of course, then he attacks the leadership in the family. And we have to realize that that's not what God has said.
Of course, there are sinful fathers. There are fathers who are disgraces to society as unbelievers and other things. We have to be very, very careful. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter five, and I just want to say that this is God's economy for many things, including restraining sin.
He uses the government, he uses the church, and he uses the family to restrain sin and to grow healthy relationships. So it makes sense that Satan would attack the government, Satan would attack the family, and Satan would attack the church.
And so even though I'm a man, and it might sound self-serving, I just hate it when every time you turn on the TV, the women are brilliant, the men are, like I said, nincompoops, and it is just a turning of the roles upside down.
We have different roles. We are different men and women. It's okay to be different. And the world sells coexist, diversity, everyone's the same, and the Bible says we are different. There's this whole kind of transgender, every kind of metrosexual, all kinds of things.
Everybody's got to be the same, and it doesn't take you very long to realize that is not true. And so Ephesians chapter five gives us the way a home should be set up. Now, the first thing that happens when we come to the text and we see 522, wives, be subject to your own husbands.
As to the Lord, people begin to blow gaskets when they think about submitting to sinful husbands. But I want you to know in the Bible, we have the rescuing of the low view of women found in the culture of the day.
The culture of the day treated women like cattle. Demosthenes said we have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and of having a faithful guardian for all household affairs.
Did you know, Josephus said, "'Woman is in all things inferior to the man.'". First century Jewish historian. Rabbi Judah, who also was around during Josephus' day, said, quote, "'A man must pronounce three blessings each day.
"'Blessed be the Lord who did not make me a heathen. "'Blessed be the Lord "'he did not make me an uneducated person. "'And blessed be the Lord who did not make me a woman.'". Jewish rabbis during the first century, one said, quote, "'He that talks much with womankind "'brings evil upon himself.'".
I can't stop laughing. "'And neglects the study of the law "'and will inherit Gehenna.'". Talk too much to ladies, you're going to hell. Barclay said, "'The very institution of marriage was threatened "'because Jewish girls were refusing to marry at all "'because the position of the wife was so uncertain.'".
And here we have Paul. Here we have Jesus through his apostle Paul certainly talk about the equality of a woman before God. Are women image bearers? Are women image bearers even post fall? Of course, Galatians chapter three makes that clear.
But I believe what Barclay said, "'It is impossible to exaggerate the cleansing effect "'that Christianity had on home life in the ancient world "'and the benefits it brought to women.'". It was an unknown concept, a revolutionary concept where you would have men treating women properly.
You would have men with the goal and desire set so high that it is like Christ loving the church in total giving, total agape love. Women are not inferior in any matter. Women are equal in Christ. Did you know in the Old Testament they had the same responsibilities as men to obey God's law, Torah.
They had to teach God's law to their children. They had to participate in Passover or were they just kind of farmed out? This is for men, you ladies go over there. No. Did you know they had the same protection as men?
If a crime was committed, God valued the life of a woman as he valued the life of a man. And if you killed in first degree murder a woman, you would be killed. They had the same access to God as men. They could pray.
Galatians 3 .28 says, "'There's neither Jew nor Greek, "'there's neither slave nor free man, "'there's neither male nor female, "'for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'". But they were to submit to their husbands.
Verse 22 in Ephesians 5 again says, "'Be subject to your own husbands.'". By the way, that is the effect of being filled by the Spirit. Show me a person who's filled by the Spirit. Galatians would say they'd have love, joy, and peace.
Paul would say, look at verse 18, as I started off the service about Psalms, "'Don't get drunk with wine,' that's dissipation, "'be filled with the Spirit.'". What does a Spirit-filled person do? Speaking to one another in spiritual Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody with your heart to the Lord.
Number two, showing thanks, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. Number three, be subject to one another in the fear of Christ, and then it gives us the specifics.
Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, verse 25, "'Love your wives just as Christ loved the church.'". So I think what Satan does is, Satan says, both are the same. There are no role differences.
It extends into homosexuality and heterosexuality and all kinds of other things. And I would like to say that even though sometimes I am a nincompoop and I am a sinner and I'm not a good leader, God, by definition, has given me leadership in the local home, true?
And I don't have to fight for that. I don't have to try to grab that. I just am the leader. And God loves a family so much that if there's a husband that had a vote and a wife had a vote and they were disagreeing on something, then it's going to split the marriage.
So God says, I am going to give the leadership and full responsibility to the husband. The wife can tuck herself under there and they will always make the same decision because at the end of the day, the husband, after conferring, after praying, after seeking wisdom, after consulting with the vice president, i .e. the wife, he makes a decision and goes forward and God honors that.
If he makes a bad decision, then the wife can just duck. But other than that, that's a different sermon, of course. But the world says husbands are horrible. The Bible says the husbands are the leader.
The world says husbands can't do anything right and husbands just are lazy and they do all these other things. And the Bible says it's the husband who needs to be the knight in shining armor, the one who's full of honor and valor and courage and comes and rescues the woman and be mini Christ in that area.
So it just really bothers me when the world keeps saying men are horrible. It translates into other things in the family where we've got to rely on psychology for raising our children, et cetera, but it is a lie.
If you look at verse 18, you can turn there sometime, Colossians 3, 18, wives, be subject to your husbands as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. And so I think that's probably all we have for tonight.
Let's see, we could do kind of a speed round if we wanna do that and I'm gonna just do that very thing. Next, man can control his own destiny. Captain of our own fate, we'll do what we want when we want.
What's the lie about that? Control your own destiny, you're captain of your own ship. God's sovereign, we're not. That was the easy one. There are many ways to get to God. Who can tell me a verse that would cancel that out?
I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. 1 Timothy 2 talks about Christ is the mediator and only Christ. Let me give you another one. The church is passe. The church is passe.
Who cares about the church? It's no big deal. It's irrelevant. It doesn't work. It doesn't do anything good. But Jesus says, I'm gonna build a church and the gates of death aren't going to prevail against it.
All right, just a few more just to go super fast. You ought to cooperate with unbelievers, Satan says, to get the greater good accomplished. After all, they don't like abortion. We don't like abortion.
Let's all get together and say we don't like abortion. When 2 Corinthians 6 says, we can't walk together unless we're agreed. What fellowship does light have with darkness? All right, I'm on a roll, so I'm just gonna do a few more.
You guys are the elect. You're here. It's only 50 minutes into the sermon, so you can hang in there just a couple more minutes. Next lie. A good local church should be involved to the hilt in politics.
Politics is good for the local church. Friends, if you'd like to be involved in politics at a personal level, I wish you wouldn't be because the definition of politics is compromise for increased platform.
But the church, we're not gonna be involved because Republicans go to hell too without Christ Jesus, and so do Democrats, and so do liberals, and so does the Green Party, yes? If Ralph Nader does not get saved, he's not gonna go to heaven.
And so I'm not gonna get so involved at the church level. I'm not gonna hand out things over there on who you should vote for. Friends, mark this well. Politics has a faulty understanding on the nature of man, and they don't realize how depraved man is, so the whole structure for politics, it crumbles because they don't understand how bad man is.
All right, last one. You don't need doctrine, just love Jesus. You don't need doctrine, just love Jesus. Second, Timothy four, verse two. You are to preach the word, young Pastor Timothy, and you're to preach it in season and out of season.
You're to reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and doctrine. That's the Greek word for instruction, doctrine. You better preach with doctrine. And so here's what I say. I've gotta figure out a grade level to preach to you at.
What grade level do I pick? Third grade? If I preach at third grade, guess what we would have here at the church? Junior church, yeah. We'd probably have first grade because you don't quite live up to what the preaching is.
I don't live up to my preaching. It's kind of a couple under. So we have junior church. We have ABC church. Well, what if I preached at seminary level way up here? Maybe that's too high. But I probably, if I have to preach, I'm preaching like 12th grade level doctrine because then if you're in 13th grade, you're in college, you go, yeah, I still learn some things, but I'm glad that the other congregation can get it.
If you're a brand new Christian, you're going, I can't hardly understand anything this guy's saying, but I'm gonna go home and study, and I think I'll eventually get it. When I used to play basketball with the guys at University of Nebraska, when I wasn't a player on the team, I always got what when I played with them?
First schooled, and then I also got better. I got schooled because I would learn from them, and then I got better. And so I'm gonna preach at a high level because I want you to be mature. The only way you're gonna get mature in Christ Jesus is having the word come at a high level.
And so show me, I dare you, tell me a great Bible preacher of this century who didn't preach some sermons sometimes that you had to go home and re-listen to because you couldn't figure out what he was saying.
MacArthur does it, Piper does it, Lloyd-Jones does it, Boyce does it. The best preachers preach up there, so you've got to kind of step up, God help me understand these things. So I think we must have doctrine so we can learn, so we can grow, and so our praise of Christ increases.
All right, I had about five more, but five, seven. You hear that? Five, seven. All right, I'm gonna just give you a couple more then. I'm just gonna keep going. No religion has all the truth. Christianity has all the truth.
We know that. There's as much moral value in a dog as a human. That's a lie because God took the dust of the ground and formed a human and He breathed life into that human. I attribute things to my dog.
I know your dogs don't have a soul, but my dog is close. My dog is evolving almost into soulhood because she just has those eyes and she kind of knows how to look and she does that thing. My dog's almost human, but not quite.
I have to believe what the Bible says. We don't believe there's as much soul as a dog. We don't believe there's as much value in a dog as a human. They are for us. They are for us, frankly, to serve us and for us to eat even if we'd like to eat our dogs.
We could eat our dogs. Some cultures do. All right, last one, I promise this is the last one. This is Steve's. If you don't like it, it's just Steve Cooley's. I'm gonna quote him. There are new sources for information about angels, Jesus, and God.
That's a lie. We have the once for all delivered faith. Jude verse four. Hebrews chapter one says, you wanna know how God speaks today? It's not in dreams, it's not in visions, it's not in peyote sweat baths late at night or having salsa at midnight.
It is through Jesus and his apostolic messengers. Hebrews one, one to three. God told me something. I don't think so these days because if he did, A, you ought to write it down, and B, why would God speak to you when you can't even be a local member of a local church?
God speaks to Abrahams and the Moseses and the Daniels, and then now we have enough gall and enough pride to somehow think out of all the people throughout all the centuries that were like Moses and Daniel and Paul and Peter, now God is speaking to me?
I think we ought to reconsider that. Jesus has spoken with finality in the word, and we have what's called a closed canon. 66 books, no more information about God given until the day you see him in heaven.
Then nothing will be contradicted in scripture. You will just have added information and you will learn. You don't like learning now? You're not gonna like heaven because there's gonna be wonderful things to learn in heaven, and you'll never forget one good thing that you've learned in heaven.
We don't wanna believe Satan's lies. The best thing you can do is study the Bible and you'll see Satan's counterfeits very, very easily. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that we know we have received this word from you, and it is complete, it is final, it is sufficient, it's reliable, it's trustworthy.
Help us as Christians not to think anything about you that's not found in the word, and help us as Christians to think about you as we ought to containing everything in the word. That's exactly how we should think.
And we're thankful that one day, maybe for some of us yesterday or this morning, but for most of us in years gone by, you sent a frail sinner to preach the gospel of the glory of God to us, and then you saved us.
So Lord, help us to be good preachers of the gospel to other people, and may your word sound forth, not only in Macedonia, not only in Acacia, but also in West Boylston and in Central Mass. In Jesus' name, amen.