Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We're far from being the inherently good people our culture says we are. In fact, apart from certain restraints, we're capable of unspeakable evil. Today, another chapter in our journey of self-discovery, a journey in which we're finding out why we do what we do.
Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, the violence that's tearing America apart is clear evidence that something is fundamentally wrong with people.
Well, Dave, you're absolutely right, and I wish I had lots of time to discuss that with you. There are people in society today who believe that the only reason why people do evil is because of external circumstances. Change their circumstances, and they will live righteously. The Bible, however, pinpoints the fact that the human heart is deceitful and wicked, and we need to explain that and to understand it. But you know, there's also an answer for the human heart, and that is the transformation of Christ, a new heart I will give you. And it's been my experience, and I'm sure it is yours as well, that people who have experienced that transfer of heart suddenly become generous. And you know, you today may be thinking about how you are going to distribute some of your gifts in the coming year.
Would you consider running to win? Here's what you can do. Go to endurancepartners.org. Now that, of course, is all one word, endurancepartners.org. Or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. I'll be giving you this contact information again at the end of this message.
Thanks in advance for listening and for your partnership. George Stephanopoulos, who for many years was an advisor to President Clinton, said these words during the days when the president's relationship with an intern made international headlines. The battle is all but over, and I'm still mystified by the Clinton paradox. How could a president so intelligent, so compassionate, so public-spirited, so conscious of his place in history, how could he act in such a stupid, selfish, and self-destructive manner? And that's the question for today's sermon. Why is it that intelligent people sometimes do things that are selfish, self-destructive, stupid, and sometimes even very evil?
Why? Freud has a history of being known in psychoanalysis for his psychoanalysis, and he says that there is within us these urges, these drives, and they are tempered by society and cultural restraints, and we can be thankful for those restraints. Because if everyone followed his or her desires wherever they might lead, a society would be nothing but chaos.
Now, Freud was wrong in many respects because he did not believe in God, and therefore some of his conclusions are skewed, but he does have a point, and actually it's much more serious than that because it's not just for the restraints of society for which we can give thanks, but also that you and I have protective measures that we adopt to protect us from exposure, from being the people that we really are, and we hide our true selves from others. I've seen this happen many times. I've had women say to me that when I dated him, he was one man. After we were married, he was another.
I had no idea that he had such a hot temper. I had no idea that he had lived a life of such deceit. All of that was hidden from me, and only now does it come out that I have peace, and only now does it come out peace by peace. As a matter of fact, as a result of that, we have rationalizations because the mind is used to somehow justify the desires of the heart, and so guilt is repressed.
You have excuses that are made and believed, and we like to deceive and deceive others, and if possible, even deceive God. Spiritual maturity, as we learned in the last message, is to be able to be integrated. That is to say that what you see outside and the life that we live publicly is basically the people whom we really are privately. One day someone came to Francis of Assisi and said to him, art thou Saint Francis?
And he said yes. And the peasant said, take heed that thou be as good as men believe thee to be. Well, I wish I were as good as men believe me to be. We all desire that.
I desire that. So that the image that we project is basically one of integrity. We say we love God and we love him. We are not like the hypocrites about whom Jesus spoke. This people, they honor me with their lips. They say one thing on Sunday, but quite a different thing on Monday, but their hearts, Jesus said, are far from me.
No, you and I want to live like we love Christ because we indeed do love him. Why do intelligent people do bad things? In order for us to get a handle on this, let's take our Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 3. It's where it all got started, Genesis chapter 3. We need to paint the context in which sin entered into the world. Particularly, we shall talk about Eve, even though Adam is more culpable. But Genesis chapter 3 is an interesting context.
The context is paradise. I want you to know that Eve was there with her husband and at this time she did not yet have a sin nature. She did not have evil desires. She was, after a manner of speaking, perfect.
Also, listen up ladies. Think about this for a moment. She was married to a perfect husband.
Oh boy. Didn't have to tell him that he was lazy. Didn't have to have any insecurities.
There was no competition with supermodels who grace our new stands. None of that. Didn't have to worry about the woman next door who is spending too much time with her husband and off hours. Didn't have all those worries.
No insecurities. She was perfect. Her husband was perfect and they lived in a perfect environment.
Think about it. Was she hungry? She could eat all that she wanted. Did she desire beauty? There were the trees of the garden and the flowers of the garden and all the beauty that she could possibly imagine. Did she want a happy marriage?
Imagine it. No arguments in the home. No worries about money. At this point, no discussion regarding problems with the children.
That will come later. Here she is in a perfect environment. Oh, you say, but she needed unconditional love. Yes, she had it. She had it from her husband and she had it from God. And in that context, her curiosity got the best of her. She still thought to herself, you know, if I do not go with what the serpent says, there is a certain intrigue that this tree has for me.
And if I don't eat it, I will always wonder what it would have been like. And in that context, she still disobeyed God. Today we have behaviorism. Behaviorism says that people aren't evil. It is actually society that is.
The reason that people steal is because they're hungry. They commit murder because society makes certain ground rules that instigates them to commit murder. Well, that's part of the story, most assuredly, but it's not the whole story.
It's been indicated that in the shootings that take place in our high schools that oftentimes these kids are from wealthy, good, in quotes, homes. So it isn't just society that is evil. It is we who are evil. But at this point, Eve did not have that evil nature yet. Furthermore, I'm reminded as I open this passage that she sinned against great light.
She sinned in the face of incredible blessings from God. There was only one tree that they were not to eat of. Even the tree of life was apparently one that was not prohibited. If they had eaten it, they'd have been immortalized as good, innocent people, if I understand the text. God did not say don't eat of it. He said there is one tree in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Do not eat it, for in the day that you eat thereof, you shall die. Hundreds of trees that she could eat from, just one negative, and that was the basis upon which she decided to disobey. You know, I've known people like Eve.
Many of us are that way. Sometimes sinning against great light, you have to be able to eat light. You have those who are brought up in good churches, good homes, praying parents, good Sunday schools, and they still do very evil, destructive things, and they turn from God.
What's going on here in the text in chapter 3? Eve basically was intrigued by her desires, though at this point they were not yet sinful. And if you ask me, well, why did she choose against God in light of the fact that she didn't have these desires? We just have to say that that is mysterious. We do not know why. We do know that she did.
It says in James chapter 1, and I love this expression in the NIV, it says that we sin when we are dragged away by our own desires and enticed. We are basically desire driven. Facts do not matter much when it comes to behavior. Intelligence is not where it's at. Arguments will not cut it.
They're helpful in a certain context, but they will not change behavior. Woody Allen was right. The heart wants what it wants, and the mind had better fall in line. What were the mistakes that Eve's desires dragged her away to do? I'm not going to read the entire first part of the third chapter because I'm going to assume that you are familiar with it. My text today is chapter 3, verse 6. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her.
All Hebrew scholars agree that Adam was there in the garden while this was happening, and he ate it. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The next message in this series has to do with shame. But notice the mistake she made. First of all, she preferred her perceptions to God's Word. You see, God had said, do not eat of it.
That was the warning. Satan made a promise. In the day that you eat of it, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
And here she was needing to make a decision between the two. And the tree looked good. In fact, the tree was good.
Everything that God created was good. Can't imagine that it was a bad tree. The problem is that God decided that this tree would be a basis of a test. God could have said something else.
He could have said, the moment you cross this stream, you are going to die. But he chose a tree, and God said, this is the way in which I'm going to give you an opportunity to choose, either for me or against me. So God built into something, like the tree, that was good, inherent consequences that could not be seen by the human eye. And so Eve stood there, and she looked at it. And she decided to redefine God's prohibition. You'll notice the text.
We'll read it again. She saw that the tree was good for food. She looked at it, and she said, it will benefit my body. And pleasing to the eye, she said, it will benefit my soul, the aesthetic part of me. And it was desirable to gain wisdom.
It will help my mind. And so there she stood. And she decided that she would go with what the serpent said. Her conclusion? Her conclusion was that God's instructions were not as important as the perceptions and the desires of the immediate moment. And now, she didn't say to Adam, Adam, I have decided to disobey God. She didn't say it that way. She no doubt says, I've decided to eat of the fruit of this tree so that I might benefit and receive its good fruit.
She redefined God's instructions. And we do that. Sell them, do you say, we plan to continue in immorality?
No, no, no. Nobody says that, unless they're repenting or thinking about repenting or being very honest. We redefine sin. Up the street from us, there is a pastor who decided to marry two homosexuals. And all of us know that that was in the news some time ago, actually, a couple of years ago. And no one says, well, what we are doing is we're taking an illicit relationship here and trying to cover it over with a vow.
Nobody says that. All that you need to do is to read the literature and the newspaper reports, and it is all the loving thing to do. It is the right thing because this is love.
It's taking what God has said, redefining it so that we can live with it, so that we can rationalize it, and so our desires can be lived out. My wife and I are acquainted with a family where a young woman, perhaps in her early 20s, has decided to move in with a married man. Maybe he's divorced by now, I'm not sure, but she decided to do that. She has several children, and so they're living together. She's been warned and admonished by her mother. She's been admonished by her other siblings.
Her friends have called her on the phone and said, you'd better get out of this relationship. It's sinful. It's destructive. It cannot end well. It will not end well in this life, and it most assuredly will not put you in good stead in eternity. God is at stake here. What do you think her response was? Did she say, oh, of course, come to think of it, this is evil. How could I be this foolish? I don't want to go on offending God.
I know that for every mile I take out of God's will, I'm going to have a mile to come back, so the sooner I end this relationship, the better, so that I can live with myself and be in fellowship with God and receive his forgiveness and the acceptance of God's people. Of course, how could I be so stupid? Oh, no, that's not what she's saying. She's saying, mother, you taught us to love one another, and I love this man, and I'm just fulfilling the will of God in showing love and living with someone whom we are really bonded with.
This is the loving thing to do. Notice it. Perceptions take priority over God's command and God's word, but our perceptions are sometimes wrong.
You know, left to ourselves, we most assuredly would think that the earth is stationary and the sun is revolving around the earth when in point of fact science now tells us it is the opposite way and that the earth is the one that is tilting toward the sun, causing sunrises and sunsets. And there's no way we know what God programmed into disobedience. That's known only to him. What the serpent was saying to Eve very clearly was, Eve, feel, don't, think. Don't use your intellect. Reject God's instructions and do that which is most urgent and most immediate, but redefine it as something very good and helpful. That was the first mistake. She preferred God's perceptions to God's word. She took the words of the serpent rather than the word of God. Now this gets intriguing because it says in 1 Timothy that Adam was not deceived, he ate knowingly, but Eve was deceived. This is 1 Timothy chapter 2.
It was a genuine deception. And that means that she thought, for whatever reason, that the words of the serpent were more authoritative than God's words. She thought that the serpent had insight into what this tree was all about and its consequences that were really even hidden from God. God says you shall die.
The serpent says you shall not really die. God's motives are impure. He's concerned that if you eat, you're going to end up being like he is and he doesn't want that. He's insecure.
He doesn't want the competition. And that's really the reason why you're not supposed to participate. And she bought the lie. And so she accepted that. Now what the serpent did tell her was partly true. You know, it says in verse 22 of this chapter that God himself says that man has become like one of us knowing good and evil.
Let me explain it this way. God knows all about evil, but he knows it like a surgeon might know something about a disease. Well, this is Pastor Luther, and of course my point there is that God knows evil not that he has personally done it or experienced it, but he knows the depth of the evil in our hearts and he sees it. You know, the ministry of Running to Win exists to help people to make it across the finish line.
In the process, we analyze culture. We analyze the human heart as this sermon series has done. But at the end of the day, we always point people to Jesus Christ. We believe that he is the answer to the deepest needs of the human heart.
And of course, it is only he who can take us across the line, the finish line, so to speak. I want to thank the many of you who support this ministry. And if you might be interested in becoming an endurance partner, endurance partners are people who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts.
You want to know more? Here's what you do. Go to endurancepartners.org. That's endurancepartners.org. Or if you prefer, you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for helping us get the gospel to as many people as possible where we expose sin, but we also expose the answer in Jesus Christ.
Give us a call, 1-888-218-9337. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. Many of us have deep wounds from the wrongs done to us by others. Henrietta is among those facing this, and she writes, I'm interested in knowing more about how to forgive people who have wronged me. And how would I know I actually have forgiven them? I have to pray about it because the hurt does not go away. It usually comes back, and then I want to be angry all over again. So how can I succeed in forgiving them? Well, Henrietta, I speak to you today with a great deal of compassion because I know that bitterness is so destructive, and sometimes it sticks like Velcro to the human heart.
But I do need to make a couple of comments. First of all, you need to lay it down. Even if there's no possibility of reconciliation with the people who have hurt you, you need to simply say, God, I give this up. I turn it over to you. The Bible says, vengeance is mine. I will recompense, says the Lord. So my question to you, Henrietta, is this. Do you have enough faith to believe that God's going to take care of it in his own time and in his own way so that you can walk free?
You say, Pastor Lutzer, no, my faith isn't that great. But here's what you do. You come before the Lord and you simply choose to let go and to trust him.
And when you're desperate, it's amazing how much he will help you and even grant you the ability to trust. Now, what happens when the feelings return? When those feelings of bitterness return, what you do is you do the same thing again. What you will discover is that over a period of time, you'll be free from the bitterness and you'll do yourself a favor. You'll honor God.
Remember this. Somebody has well said that bitterness is like swallowing poison and then expecting your enemy to die. You see, you aren't hurting your enemy because of your anger. Henrietta, you're hurting yourself. As soon as you listen to this, you get on your knees and you spend enough time there to give it all to God. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. We hope, Henrietta, this has been helpful to you. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Tomorrow, the sad reality that many people no longer repent of their sins, they manage them. We're so deceived, we think we're okay as long as we keep our sins in balance. Don't miss part two of this compelling message. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
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