Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Years ago, sometimes you’d hear someone say flippantly “the devil made me do it!” as they tried to explain their mistake or failure. I wonder what you think about that statement. Let’s resume our journey with Jesus and His disciples on their way from Jericho to Jerusalem only a few days before Palm Sunday about 2000 years ago.
Yesterday, as we walked along with them, we were considering a story John wrote about a strong confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees found in John 8. The Pharisees, of course, refused to give even the slightest consideration to the claim that Jesus was God incarnate and His miracles were proof that He had God’s power in Him.
Jesus had said, “I have not come on My own, God sent Me. Why is My language not clear to you? You are unable to hear what I say because you belong to your father the devil…” (John 8:42-44) Oh my, I doubt we can imagine the anger that welled up in these well-educated, prideful, religious leaders in Jerusalem.
Jesus was actually accusing them of being under the influence and in some relationship with Satan! Let me ask you my friends, does that take slander to an extreme or could it be what Jesus said is truthful for all of us?
You and I and every human being is born with a sinful nature. From the time we are little babies, no matter the family we are growing up in, our natural selfishness is evident, and as we grow up through our toddler years, our childhood years that sinful nature matures doesn’t it and we learn the power of words and how easy it is to hurt people with our tongues. We learn the power of lying and cheating and stealing and we learn the power of violence. Do you know where all that comes from? That’s right… the devil!
The devil, Satan, is fully opposed to God, God’s love, God’s goodness, God’s holiness, God’s peace and the devil will do anything he can to bring discord, anger, brutality, and every other form of evil into our lives, our families and our world. Can you see that in your world?
Now let’s listen very carefully to what Jesus said next about the devil: “You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.“ (John 8:44) Oh my that is a very powerful statement, isn’t it? Do you see how Jesus is drawing the clear contrast between Satan and God? God is the author of life; no life comes into existence without God. Satan, who is a God created angel but who rebelled against God, does not have the unique God power to create life. Because the devil is always opposed to God and everything God does, Satan celebrates death, and the dark kingdom always does whatever it can to see death accomplished. The words of Jesus that the devil was a murderer from the beginning is seen in the first family of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel found in Genesis 2-4.
I imagine my friends that you know the story well, but may I remind you that by the 8th verse of the 4th chapter of Genesis already we see the profound death objectives of Satan. Adam and Eve yielded to the devil’s temptation and disobeyed God, breaking their wonderful, pure, trusting relationship with God and inviting Satan and his influence into their garden of Eden and their lives. Their happy, pure marriage is deeply scarred with mistrust, anger, accusations of each other and God responds in loving but righteous judgment.
Suddenly everything had changed. In their shame they cover themselves and in their fear they hide. God expelled them from the utopian garden of Eden, and they immediately experienced the pain of broken relationships with each other and with God. They began living the hardships of life without the blessing of God in every aspect of their lives.
Their sons fought against one another, and Cain actually killed his brother Abel. All of this is the direct result of the original family yielding to the influence of the devil and his dark kingdom of evil, hatred, deceit and death.
On another occasion Jesus had said these words which give even further clarity to the devil’s character and intentions with humanity: “The thief [the devil] comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) Have you found those words to be true my friends? Do you see the evil work of the dark kingdom is always seeking to steal from you, and all of us, God’s Hope, Joy, and Peace? Do you see the dark kingdom’s effort to kill the sacred covenant of God honoring marriage or kill the trust and love relationship between parents and their children? Do you see the devil always trying to draw people AWAY from God? Do we see that those and many more efforts can result in the destruction of a family or even a community or even a nation?
And do you see the contrast, that Jesus will ALWAYS work to bring LIFE and LOVE and mutual respect into any relationship? Jesus will always work to protect and nurture every relationship, every family which seeks to honor Him! Do you see Jesus ready to protect and nurture a community and even a nation if they seek to honor God?
The Psalmist wrote: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He chose for His inheritance. From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind, from His dwelling place God watches all who live on earth – He who forms the hearts of all, considers everything they do…. the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear Him whose hope is in His unfailing love.” (Ps. 33:12-22)
My friends, please take careful note that Jesus said the devil does not hold onto the truth for “…there is no truth in him. When he [Satan] lies he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Is there any more definitive statement about the core character of Satan… a liar! This my friends should serve as a great warning to every person regarding the devil. ‘There is no truth in him’ is a profound, damning statement! This is the very highest value, the very centerpiece of the dark kingdom… deceit, deception, untruth, doubt, lies. God, however, and the kingdom of God, have TRUTH as one of their highest values, a cornerstone. That’s why yesterday we looked closely at the words of Jesus which He had spoken in this very same conversation when He said: “If you hold to MY teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free…so if the Son of God sets you free, you will be free indeed!” (John 8:32,36)
Followers of Jesus are lovers and pursuers of God’s TRUTH. Those people living lives influenced by the devil have an aversion to truth, they will twist reality to their own advantage even if it means lying but claiming to be telling the truth. It happens in courtrooms and government offices and business transactions and classrooms and even in hospitals every day, all across whatever country you are in right now. Sadly, it happens in homes and churches and synagogues and mosques.
Now watch this friends … truth and lies can coexist simultaneously in the same person! While we hear both, we will accept the one and disregard or reject the other, but amazingly we have the dysfunctional ability, as human beings, to bounce back and forth between truth and lies believing one and rejecting the other so rapidly it almost appears these antithetical positions coexist. But the truth is while you might entertain in your mind two opposite realities, truth and lies, you can only act on one of them at a time.
Jesus closed this very challenging confrontation with the Pharisees with this statement: “I tell the truth, yet you do not believe Me. Can any of you prove Me guilty of sin? If I’m telling the truth, why don’t you believe Me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” (John 8:45-47) Jesus was making the point that each of us is born with a conscience and God desires to nurture that conscience by the work of His Holy Spirit and His truth, enabling us to refine the ability to detect even the slightest deceit or distortion of truth. But the devil is also working, seeking to numb our conscience, to dull our recognition of the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, truth and a lie. Can you see that strategy at work in your world, from the time little children are first learning words, all through our growing up years, our adult years even into our old age?
Can you see the power of the influence of friends, family, school, job, social media, entertainment, politics…all seeking to blur the lines between truth and false, right and wrong? Do you see it my friends? Do you understand how hard the dark kingdom is working to draw every person far away from God into the fog of apathy or a numbed conscience therefore vulnerable to believing the lies and rejecting the truth.
As Easter ’23 approaches look closely into your society, into your life… how is the battle for truth raging and what is your level of discernment? What is the price of a numbed conscience and moral apathy? We need to talk with God about this, right now, my friends!
Today’s Scripture is John 8:42-47.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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