Lying

Colossians 1:25-29

COL-224

1 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

1 Corinthians 2:9-10: "But just as it is written, things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. For to us, God revealed them through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God."

Romans 15:4: "For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, and through perseverance, and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope."

Our subject is the "Mystery of the Church," number 39, in Colossians 1:28-29.

The Colossian Christians were being lied to by some false religious teachers that had come into their midst. These people were bearing false witness against the Lord Jesus Christ. These false teachers claimed that they had superior spiritual insights beyond what the apostle Paul had taught them. The false teachers of our day do the same thing. They claim to have superior insights that they have received from God.

However, Romans 2:21-22 point out to us: "You, therefore, who teach another, do you teach yourself? You who preach that one should not steal: do you steal? You say that one should not commit adultery: do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols: do you rob idols?" These people, who believed that they were superior, were themselves guilty of all the grossness of sin that are capable by the old sin nature.

Proverbs 26:12 says, "Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool then for him."

So, here we have in the city of Colossae, these people coming in and claiming to have superior knowledge.

In Romans 1:21-22, the apostle says, "For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God. They did not give thanks. But they became futile in their speculation, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools."

Now, that is the issue that confronted the Colossian Christians. Who would they believe? The apostle Paul; or, these hotshots that had come in among them, and said, "We have something better (superior) for you. These teachers denied the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. They falsely taught that he was merely one of a long line of angels with superior, but incomplete, information about God. This is described in Colossians 2:18-19. Paul says, "Let no one keep defrauding you (robbing you) of your prize, by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God."

Paul warns these Colossians: "Don't listen to the false teachers. They're exalting angels above the person of Jesus Christ. They turn him into just one of the superior angels, and this is the vain imaginations of their own mind. And the result is that they want you to abandon the head of the body of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who holds everything together.

So, this is what was facing these people in Colossae. And you'll notice that one of their claims to authority was that they had a vision from God. That's constantly happening today in certain religious circles. People claim they have got a vision (great insight) from God. Anything beyond the Scriptures is not from God. You can count on that.

Now, what the false teachers were proclaiming was nothing more than the human viewpoint wisdom that they had received from the devil, who, you must remember, was the all-time great liar. Jesus pointed that out in John 8:44. This is a very important verse. You should never forget it, because anything that the devil has to do with is a huge deceit. The whole world system that we move through is a monstrous deceit, "You are of your father, the devil," Jesus pointed out to His Pharisaical, religious opponents, "and you want to do the desires of your father (the desires that he expresses in your old sin nature). He was a murderer from the beginning (in the case of Abel), and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. For he is a liar, and the father of lies."

These people were bringing information that did not come from God. It came from themselves, out of their old sin nature, which had been taught lies by Satan himself.

Now, this is the way the human race came to its tragic condition today. Eve told him, "We can't eat of that fruit of that tree, because God said that if we do, we'll die." Genesis 3:4-5: "And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die." He was a liar from the beginning: "For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan said, "You'll become a God, Eve. And you will, by your own personal experience, know what is good and what is evil. You will have a discernment just the way God does. So, he's trying to keep you from a good thing.

Now it is inconceivable that she would've believed him. And yet there it was – the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His pre-incarnate state, meeting them every day, teaching them the principles of the Word of God, the doctrinal concepts of deity. Every day they met with Him in the cool of the day, and a talking snake comes along, and she said, "I'll listen to him," because the snake was more emotionally appealing to her. And once your approach to God is based on your emotions, then you will be devastated. Then you'll have no foundation to meet the issues of life when you need wisdom.

In the process of teaching the devil's lies as wisdom, you must also understand that these teachers in Colossae were, in effect, making God out to be a liar, with His divine viewpoint wisdom from Scripture. You cannot just take up something from the world, and throw yourself behind supporting something from the world system, without, at the same time, saying that God is a liar. What you are supporting from the world system is a monstrous deceit, in one way or another. It is a lie. And if you hold to that as reality, then you're telling God that He is not the true reality.

1 John 5:10 says, "The one who believes in the Son of God has a witness in Himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed on the witness that God has borne concerning his son."

Romans 3:4: "May it never be. Rather let God be found true, and every man be found a liar." The apostle Paul is trying to tell the Colossian Christians: "Don't listen to people of the world. Don't listen to the religious systems around you. Do not be intimidated that you are the minority. Do not be intimidated by the fact that most of the religions of the world are opposed to what you believe, because they are the products of Satan. And Satan is a liar, and what they teach is not true. But it is God Who speaks the truth."

So, Paul taught the truth to the Colossians about the Person and the ministry of Jesus Christ. And He admonished the believers against sinning, and He taught them church-age, doctrinal principles of truth. The purpose of Paul's ministry was to give the Colossian believers the wisdom of God. That's not in your emotions. It's up here, folks, in your head. It's the wisdom of God, because it is with the mind that you learn the principles of doctrine, and it is with the mind that you then say, "I believe that." And positive volition sparks the system into action that takes that divine truth, and puts it into your human spirit. Now your emotions know how to act. Now your will knows how to make its decisions, because the Holy Spirit kicks that information back up to your mind to take proper actions.

The purpose of the ministry of Paul was to give divine viewpoint wisdom of God to these believers for their lives. And we must never forget that there is no option. Divine wisdom is not optional. You cannot live by anything else. You cannot choose anything else. When God says that you must live by His wisdom, that's it. And if you refuse to do that, there's nothing else. It is only the divine viewpoint wisdom of God which is the truth, because it comes from God, and that is what is recorded in Scripture.

In 1 Timothy 1:17, Paul says, "Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." Why? Because only from Him can we find truth. So, why are we looking to psychology? Why are we looking to psychiatrists? Why in God's name are we going to counselors – yes, even Christian counselors for advice? They have nothing to offer beyond what the pastor-teacher offers in the instruction of the Word of God. That is the only source of wisdom. Now, if you have that wisdom, then you'll know how to conduct yourself. The delivery of the wisdom of God today is the duty, then, of the local pastor-teacher, through expository preaching, which is explaining doctrinal principles. All the wisdom of the religious world, which has been created by Satan, and their sacred books, is the human viewpoint wisdom of mankind. It is not the truth. It is the lies and deceits of Satan.

Lying

As Isaiah 5:20 says: "They called evil good; and, good evil." They called truth a lie; and, they called a lie the truth.

Now lying about (and two others) is an expression of great hatred. And it violates the second greatest commandment of God, which is to love others as we love ourselves. Matthew 22:39 points that out to us.

Romans 13:8-10 tell us that love ("agape," mental-attitude love, that God the Holy Spirit gives us) prevents us from violating any of the great moral commandments of God. So, the wisdom of Satan is a lie; and, the wisdom of God – that is the truth. And one of the expressions of Satan's great characteristic of lying, that he instills in people, is a violation of the second greatest commandment. The wisdom of God, which is revealed in Scripture, forbids the bearing of false witness against one's neighbor (Exodus 20:16). It forbids the telling of lies about one's neighbor to others for personal gain (Colossians 3:9).

Such slanderous misrepresentations violate the law of God to treat others with mental attitude love. It is an act of satanic hatred, and it is an act of murder in the eyes of God. 1 John 3:15: "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." And this is being spoken to Christians. Every Christian who has a spirit of hatred toward a brother is, in effect, a murderer, and is now out of temporal fellowship. And, therefore, the eternal life is not abiding (that is, not functioning) in him. That is so much the great tragedy in the life of the believer – functioning out of fellowship with the Father. And we become so used to it that it becomes commonplace, until we're confronted with a moral principle, and then, when we succumb to it, we wonder how did this happen?

Now, today, the bearing of false witness against others is widespread in the political realm and in the news media. You have certainly heard about "slanting the news." That's a euphemism for lying. And the news media constantly sit on information that they do not want the general public to know about, because it works against liberal causes. It exposes the deceit of liberal causes. Or another phrase is "spinning the news;" that is, the news is presented in such a way that it is spun out to create a certain goal and objective.

I've told you before about the illustration of the man out west who was running for a public office, and people wanted to know about his father, and what had happened to him (his family background). He said, "Well, my father was attending a public function." What he did not want to tell them was his father had been hanged as a horse thief. So he said, "My father was attending this public function, and he was on a platform that suddenly collapsed, and he was killed." Are those the facts? Yep. Is that true? Nope. That's what is meant by "spinning." You tell the facts, but you twist them, and it happens every night, when you open your eyes and watch the nightly news. Every communique that comes out from government circles is always spun and twisted. The facts are distorted and warped, to gain a deceitful end.

This is what we're living in – the era of the great violation of the ninth commandment. Elections in our own lifetime, we have seen, have been won on the basis of deliberate lies, propagated through the powerful media of television, about one's political enemies, to deceive an uninformed electorate, which is kept in dark, by the news media.

So, the practice to deceive is a very serious and big problem – the miscarriage of justice that results from deception in our day. In the court of law today, the guilty are protected from conviction, and the innocent are slandered for telling the truth. Those who are the good guys are made out to be the bad guys; and, the bad guys are made out to be the good guys. And because people have lost their way spiritually, they go along with the deceit. Bearing false witness is prominent in voting to exonerate the guilty in order to favor a class of people; a social cause; a philosophy of socialism; to negate the constitution; to restrict personal freedom; and, to discredit righteous citizens who stand forth and are condemning evil. These people, if they're on trial, may be as guilty as sin, but they will be declared innocent if they support a cause that people do not want to give up. They're supporting a cause that is for a social group; a special group; a cause of socialism; or, a feminist group, and no matter what the great evil is, the person cannot be condemned (cannot be judged guilty) so that power is removed for these causes.

That is why Christians are so hated in American society today. This is why Christians are despised – because Jesus said, "You are the people who understand about bearing false witness. You're the people who understand the mind of God, because you have the Word of God. Therefore, you're the preserving element of society. You are what keeps the structure together."

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." Salt is what preserves. In the ancient culture, if you wanted to preserve meat, you had to salt it down: "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless (it has lost its saltiness), how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out, and trampled underfoot by men." Once that society loses its saltiness, it's gone. It has nothing to preserve it anymore, because the devil is ready to take over, and create his false millennium, and bring it to total disaster.

Now, someday (in the not too distant future, I suspect), that saltiness is going to finally be brought to an end, because one day, out of the clear blue, there will come a time when, suddenly, all Christians are removed from the face of the earth. They will be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air. And the Bible speaks about that explicit, marvelous event. It is the next thing that's going to happen in the prophetic order. And in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, we have a great deal of description about this coming event. These people in Thessalonica thought that they had missed the rapture. And Paul wrote them, and said, "I don't know who's telling you those things, but they're false teachers. Don't listen to them." In verses 3-4, he says, "let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come (the time of the tribulation) unless apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness (the antichrist) is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God (or object of worship), so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God."

The Rapture of the Church

The book of Revelation describes how this man will put his image in there, and he will call upon himself to be worshiped by all the world: "Do you not remember that while I was with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restraints him now, so that, in his time, he may be revealed." What is holding back this man? What is holding back his power? What is holding back his revelation? Something is preserving society: "For the mystery of lawlessness (this strange secret of what's holding back sin) is already at work. Only He Who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way, and then that lawless one will be revealed." "He Who restrains." Who is that? That is God the Holy Spirit. When does God the Holy Spirit, in His presence, leave the earth? It is at the rapture of the church.

So, when the rapture of the church takes place, Paul says that the Holy Spirit will leave. And when the Holy Spirit leaves, then all hell will break out upon this earth, because there'll be nothing but unsaved people, and there'll be nobody to hold back the evil that Satan wants to impose. It will then go into high gear. And then, what will be the pattern of the day? It will be falsehood; lies; and, deceits, out of Satan, the all-time great liar.

Now, such false witnessing is the wisdom of man from the devil. It is not the wisdom of God. How can a genuine Christian condone sustaining evil, and voting in favor of evil, in order to support some other cause that that person is in favor of?

So you and I as Christians might be faced with the same thing. We cannot compromise our integrity, and lie to defend an evil person or a sinful act for a cause. We do not compromise our integrity.

1 John 2:18-21: "Children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have arisen. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out in order that it might be shown that they were not all of us." John says, "Little children, you have had people in your midst (in your congregation). They looked like they were great people of God, and suddenly, they evaporated, and they're off into the world system, and you discover that you had a little antichrist there. That's what they really were. Their integrity was compromised at a certain point.

Nullification of the Law

1 John 2:20-21: "But you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is in the truth." We (Christians) do not say, "I will lie for a better cause. The end justifies the means." This is regularly done in political circles – lying for what people think will justify the achieving of a more desirable end. So, even in a court of law, justice is now frustrated. This is called "nullification." A jury says, "Oh no, no, this person belongs to a certain racial group. We can't condemn him. Yes, he's guilty, but no, no, we can't condemn him. This racial group has to be protected. This is a women's group. No, we can't condemn this woman. What she represents has to be protected, therefore we will nullify the law."

Now, the Word of God speaks very seriously on that subject – bending the law in order to achieve a goal. In Leviticus 24:22, under the theocracy, God said, "There shall be one standard for you of justice. It shall be for the stranger, as well as for the native; for the foreigner, as well as for the native born, for I am the Lord your God." Everybody gets treated by the same standard of justice. And that justice is not warped in order for you to defend a certain cause – in order for you to defend, perhaps, a whole political party that you say you must defend at all costs, because it is right. What they want is right. Therefore, even though there is evil here that needs to be judged, it cannot be judged.

Deuteronomy 1:16-17, "Then I charge your judges at that time, saying, "Hear the cases between your fellow countrymen, and judge righteously between a man and his fellow countrymen, or the alien who is with him. You shall not show partiality in your judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man. For the judgment is God's. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to Me, and I'll hear it." Here is Moses setting up a legal court system. And Moses says, "You will be honest in your judgments. The guilty will be pronounced guilty, and the innocent will be pronounced innocent. You won't say, "No, this is too important a person. This is a famous person. We cannot condemn this individual." But this is a nincompoop (a nobody). We can condemn him.

In Deuteronomy 16:18-20, "And you shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns, which the Lord your God has given you, according to your tribes. And they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not distort justice. You shall not be partial. And you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God has giving you."

The implication of that statement is that a society which compromises on justice is a society which is on the way out with God. That land that they possess is going to be taken away from them. They will lose the freedoms that they have when they compromise justice in order to protect a cause that is important to them.

In Numbers 14:18, Moses gives this caution: "The Lord is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations." Okay, so you're guilty as sin, but the jury favors you for some cause that you represent. So, it nullifies the law to favor you. It ignores your guilt, and says you're not guilty. Now what? Well, in comes almighty God, and says, "I'll deal with this case. And justice is going to be provided."

Numbers 14:18: "The Lord is slow to anger, and abundant and lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgressions." You confess; you're forgiven; and, you're restored: "But He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation." Not only will the guilty be judged, but the consequences will flow over to his family unto the third and fourth generation. They will suffer for the guilty that has not been justly condemned.

So, a nation which is not governed by the wisdom of God's moral code is doomed to the judgment of God. It's just that simple. And that is the issue.

Lying to Yourself

Now it's bad enough to bear false witness against your neighbor, and it's bad enough to lie about other people slandering. But here's something inconceivable that comes home to all of us: lying to yourself – bearing false witness to yourself. Both Christians and unbelievers practice self-deception to justify the desires of their sin natures. And we believe our own lies.

1 Corinthians 3:18: "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish, that he may become wise." Wisdom of this age is not going to carry you. Become wise in the wisdom of God. The wisdom of this world is nothing, and in heaven's name, do not be impressed with famous personalities. Do not be impressed with prominent people. If they are not Christians, and if they are not well taught in the Word of God, they have nothing but the wisdom of the world. So, don't be pleased to be associated with people like that, because they are zeros. Be pleased to be associated with people that nobody knows, but who have a knowledge of God, and have His wisdom, and can splash it on you.

This business of lying to yourself is a monstrous violation of the ninth commandment against bearing false witness. And it is justified by us as real wisdom, in order to meet what we think is a need. And that's the thing: "This meets my need." Well, what do we mean by that? When we're talking about our needs, we're talking about the lust patterns of the old sin nature. And they're deceptively described as "needs," when, in fact, they are simply one's evil wants.

Now, Berean Memorial Church has, for almost half-a-century, consistently, and clearly, and honestly, proclaimed the wisdom of God that is found in doctrinal principles. And as the years have gone by, we've gotten better at doing it. We have become par excellent at giving people a chance to think the way God thinks. Some rise to it. Some go partway. Some never make it at all. But those who take hold, and start thinking the thoughts of God after Him, are able to make their life significant no matter what happens. And for half a century, anybody who walks into this auditorium can count on the fact that they will leave with a better perspective upon what God thinks than when they walked in. They can count on it: sometimes more; and, sometimes less, but always to some degree. We have been a beacon of light to people near and far to provide God's wisdom for living. That's all we do here. We provide divine wisdom.

The people that don't have it easily at hand, like these folks who listen to our tapes, are the ones who will write us these marvelous letters of gratitude, and of amazement, of how they have been denied in their lives, and in their cutesy-pooh church operations and programs and seminars, and suddenly, they listen to a simple tape by a nobody church. But because the Word of God is on that tape, the light comes on, and these people are exhilarated to the ends of their brain cells. And they cannot thank us enough.

Proverbs 3:13, "How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding." How blessed indeed. But where are people going to get it? The wisdom of Scripture is what every person needs for his life to function properly. And people gratefully thank Berean Memorial Church for providing it.

Now, if a person rejects the wisdom of God, which is found here at Berean Church, there is nothing else but the wisdom of the world of Satan. And we make no apologies for it. If you ignore the wisdom that we give you, there's nothing else out there but the wisdom of all those self-pompous, self-exalted ignoramuses who parade around because they've got money and exposure, and people think that they're something.

Proverbs 1:7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction." And there are many fools that have passed through this sacred hall, who have come to despise the wisdom that is regularly dispensed here. So, periodically, people come, and they say that the Berean Church ministry, which centers upon proclaiming the wisdom of doctrines, which is the very mind of God, does not meet a need. It doesn't meet the needs of their wife. It doesn't meet the needs of their husband. It doesn't meet the need of one of their children. It doesn't meet the need of someone else. So, they shove off and they go elsewhere.

Now, when you hear that, in reference to this ministry – that somebody's needs are not being met, and our focus, as a distributor of the wisdom of God, that has to say, "Now something is wrong here." When you hear that, those are with divine-viewpoint understanding should be able to interpret that for what it is. And that is that this is an act of bearing false witness to one's self. Somebody says, "Berean Church doesn't meet the needs of my kids, so I have to do something different:" You're lying to yourself. Somebody said, "It doesn't meet the needs of my wife, so I have to shove off, and get her needs met:" You're lying to yourself. I have no hesitancy in telling you that, because what is here is the Word of God.

Imagine claiming that the doctrinal wisdom, which is proclaimed here, which comes from the very mind of God, that that cannot meet a person's need. You may put down such nonsense to mean that we don't make people comfortable in satisfying the desires of their old sin nature. And that's what they mean when they say, "It doesn't meet my need." It means that the old sin nature is churning up some desire: "I want to be like the world. I want to act like the world. I want to be up to my armpits in the world. I want to be trivial and shallow spiritually. I want a religious life that's built on hand-clapping, dancing emotion." That's what they mean – that their needs are not being met. And all of that is the darkness of the old sin nature.

What they're saying is that we're not comfortable in a place that brings us the enlightenment of God's thinking, that causes us to have to condemn our old sin nature. It is like one lady said to me: "Why should I sit at Berean Church and feel guilty every Sunday from what I hear." You feel guilty because you hear the Word of God explained? You feel guilty because the principles of doctrine are laid out to you? And you get mad at us for that?

It is amazing how much of local church programs today, and preaching, is designed to do one thing – to justify the indulgence of one's old sin nature in some respect, and to make you feel good about it, and say that it is meeting your need. Sermons are designed to help you feel comfortable about indulging your old sin nature, and to making you feel: "Well it's okay to do that. Well, yeah, there is that problem with Scripture, and it isn't a violation of doctrine." Well, it is a breaking of a moral code, but it meets your need.

Such people are very uncomfortable in a place which does not dignify the wisdom; the practices; and, the values of the devil's world. It makes them feel guilty about indulging their old sin nature's wants. And that's what they mean about not having their needs met.

Moses

Think about Moses. Moses acted upon divine viewpoint wisdom. He rejected his old sin nature wants – not needs. These are wants of the old sin nature. And he rejected the pleasures of sin. Hebrews 11:24-26: "By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. For he was looking to the reward."

Moses had divine viewpoint wisdom. And that's what he acted upon. And what his old sin nature would liked to have had (the pleasures of sin) – those were just wants. He didn't say, "Those are my needs, and I have to live like that, so that I can fulfill my needs."

Demas

Ah, but come over to the New Testament, in 2 Timothy 4:10, and here we come to an associate of the apostle Paul, one of his evangelistic team, a man named Demas, who was highly esteemed among them: "For Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica." Thessalonica was the good-times city of the ancient world. Demas acted upon the human viewpoint wisdom of his old sin nature. He had been saturated with the divine viewpoint wisdom from the preaching of Paul, that he lived with all the time. And what does he do? In contrast to Moses, he goes for the pleasures of sin.

Now, you could not have said to Demas that the preaching and teaching of the apostle Paul, and the services that he was conducting, was not meeting his needs. It was not meeting the wants of his old sin nature. That is what Demas was looking for. So he went for it.

Joseph

David

2 Samuel 11:2-4: "Now, when evening came, David rose from his bed, and walked around on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof, he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful in appearance. So, David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, 'Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?' And David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her. And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house."

Well, the story gets very bad after that, because Bathsheba becomes pregnant, and David murders her husband in battle, and one thing goes to another. Did David not have divine viewpoint wisdom yet? Was it that that did not meet his need? No, that would've met his need exactly. Had he acted upon the moral code that he knew, his need would've been precisely met. It was because the old sin nature wanted something else. It was his wants that were not being met.

The Poor Widow

Yes, the Jew had nine-tenths that he could do with as he pleased. That's why he had to pay his tithes, and then he could give an offering out of the nine-tenths. No mature Christian, as you develop a set level of maturity gives only 10% of his giving to God's work under the age of grace, since nothing you have belongs to you. It all belongs to God. This woman understood that, and took that attitude toward herself. And no mature Christian does not ever give anything to the work of the Lord. That shows that you're about as far out of the care of God, and the supervision of God, as you can get. That's why this was important – why the Lord pointed this out to this woman. She not only gave, but she really gave her need. What was her need? Her need was to give everything that she had because that's what God had laid upon her heart. And that's what our need is.

A Bigger Barn

Now contrast that to Luke 12:19-21. This rich man indulged his old sin nature want to hoard his wealth, he thought, in a bigger barn, and he lost it all: "And I will say to you (this man says), I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease; eat; drink; and, be merry.' But God said to them, 'You fool, this very night your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you have prepared?' So is the man who lays up treasures for himself, and is not rich toward God."

What everyone needs is the divine viewpoint wisdom of God, which is found in knowing the mind of God through doctrine, and only a fool flees from divine viewpoint wisdom to his own human viewpoint wisdom, and calls that meeting his needs. The sin nature cannot provide for your needs.

Now, our young people have many wants from their old sin nature, and from the world which drives them unless their parents guide them through their high school years, to reject the desires of the old sin nature, and not justify these things as needs. I'm amazed what parents will say: "These are the needs of my kids." And they're doing everything that God must condemn. Parents, don't kid yourself. It's a sin nature wants. That's what you're meeting.

Teenage Dating

We have warned young people that they should not get into dating until they're out of high school, at least. They're not prepared for it. It's a bad game. Some parents think that their children have had many positive experiences when they have dated. And they let me know about that. These kids substitute all kinds of activities of the world for Christian service. We never see them around in the world of the Lord's work, but only out there in the world's work. That meets their needs. To have a car that they can use on their own – that meets their needs. No, it doesn't. It's their old sin nature desire to go to the prom. That doesn't meet a need. That's a desire. It's the world system. But they don't know better. But parents do.

We're coming up to a Berean Youth Club campout. One of our speakers on that campout is going to be Dr. Dobson of "Focus on the Family." One of the things in the very first session that will be laid out to the kids, up there at North Padre Island, is going to be three things that a person needs after life is all over. So, we can hope to focus these kids on what is really important, even if they don't have their parents making these decisions for them, and letting the desires of their old sin nature be the needs that they permit them to fulfill.

Who You Loved

I listened to J. Vernon McGee on the radio this past week. He was saying that the world does not know what marital love is. All they know is what two dogs sniffing at each other out in the alley know. That's what they know on the relationship of sex. They don't know what marital love is in the Christian context. And they have no way of having that wisdom at all.

So, you marry somebody like that, and you stand in eternity, and then you look at yourself, and you realize you're huge loss at the Judgment Seat because you married a dog? You can multiply that. Who you loved is going to make a big difference – to whom you give your affection and your loyalty.

Who Loved You

What You Accomplished for God

These are the only three things that are going to count in eternity. And we need to seal this in the mind of the kids. And, of course, some of the kids who need it most won't be there. But for those who are, they're going to have five magnificent sessions. And when they get to the second one, they're going to be sobered and blown out of the water. I can guarantee you on that one.

However, the issue is to understand now what is important in life so that we do not trivialize our lives; waste them; and, walk along like poor blind creatures of human viewpoint wisdom, so that we stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ, whimpering like little beaten pups, because we didn't follow the wisdom of God. Who loves you? Whom you loved? How much have you done in fulfilling your mission for the Lord Jesus Christ?

Thank You, God, for this truth. In Christ's name. Amen.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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