Deceived And Loving It Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

It's sad but true. In our modern enlightened culture, we no longer repent of our sins. Instead, we've learned to manage them. We do this knowing full well that God is not fooled.

Yet, we do it anyway. Today, the bitter fruits of deception 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, it's clear that lots of people are quite happy enjoying their sins and urge others to join them.

Dave, that's very true. And in the book of Romans, Paul condemns those who not only sin but encourage others to sin along with them. But that's the human heart. And you know, in my ministry, one of the things that I've discovered is that unless we point people to Jesus Christ, the human heart does not change.

The real transformation is an inner transformation, thanks to the gospel. You know, the ministry of Running to Win continues to proclaim this gospel to as many people as possible. Let me tell you this about the ministry of radio. It goes to places that you and I would not think about.

It goes to homes and cars and offices. I remember meeting a truck driver who said that through the app that you provide, I listen to Running to Win. He said, I love to listen to it by the hour.

Well, who would have believed that except that I happened to meet him at a meeting? Would you like to become an endurance partner that is somebody who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts? Thanks in advance for considering this.

Here's what you do. Go to endurancepartners.org. Of course, endurance partners is all one word.

endurancepartners.org or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And now we go to the pulpit of Moody Church where we continue our discussion of human nature and God's remedy. 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 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. Secondly, 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 or about a physical condition. He knows it, but he's not participating in it.

He's not a part of it. When Adam and Eve decided to sin, they then experienced evil in an experiential way, in a way that God has never experienced it because God has never done evil. And immediately Adam and Eve began to do evil. It was a terrible knowledge, deadly knowledge. But what she decided to do was to go with what the serpent was telling her. The devil came, and we don't know what serpents looked like in those days, but he was intriguing, he was interesting, and he seemed to know things that God didn't.

What I say is a parenthesis. I find it very interesting that Eve was deceived by an animal over which she had total control. God had told Adam and Eve, I give you authority over all the animals, they will obey you. You tell them to come into the garden, they'll come into the garden. You tell them to leave the garden, they will leave the garden.

You tell them to stay in a certain area, and they will do that. I will give you authority over all the animals, and that included authority over the serpents. And here Eve does not exercise that authority, but is beguiled by a serpent, and she preferred his wisdom to God's. There's a third mistake that she made, and that is she really chose the present over the future. She chose time rather than eternity.

Now it's hard for us to visualize, but put yourself in Eve's shoes, though I don't think at this point she was wearing them, but nonetheless. Here you see this beautiful tree, and you think to yourself that you can predict the consequences. You are going to have knowledge that is going to make you like God, but of course the future was hidden from her.

She could have no possible idea at all what would really happen as a result of this. If Eve, looking down the corridors of time, had seen the suffering that took place in World War I, and all the wars that preceded World War I, if she somehow with infinite knowledge could have foreseen the Holocaust, if she could have foreseen the war in Kosovo and the destruction that sin has brought upon this earth, and then if she could have looked into an eternal hell where many of the world's population will be forever, most assuredly she'd have said, it's not worth it, it's not worth it, it's not worth it, I will not eat of the fruit of this tree. But all that she saw was that present moment, that's all that mattered.

It was a tree to be desired to make one wise, its fruit looked so appealing. And her desire said, Eve, go for it. And she did. And she tripped a series of dominoes that suddenly landed the whole world into sin, future generations would all be born sinful, we are a part of the dilemma, and on and on the waves and the repercussion of her disobedience continue to go all the way into eternity. But for her, it was just the present moment. That's all that mattered. Where is God in this?

That's the way modern man is. I read a story about how some college students from a Christian school went to spring break to try to witness to kids on the beach. They met a group of guys with a couple of six packs under their arm and they were on their way to a wet t-shirt contest and here they're trying to lead these people to Christ and say, you need Jesus. And the guys are saying, Jesus, are you kidding? I mean, God, why bring God into this? We've got a good thing going here.

The girls are there waiting. You're talking about God? All that matters is the present moment. We'll deal with God and we'll deal with eternity later. But eternity does come.

What is it that I'm trying to say? The consequences, of course, of this disobedience is evident. We begin now to hide our sin and that's next week's sermon. What we want to do is to cover ourselves because we become insecure.

We're fearful that people will know who we really are. That's one consequence. The other consequence is that we begin to excuse our sin now.

Now we're going to begin to think differently. When God says one thing and our desires want something else, we're going to say either that God doesn't mean it or there is some exception for us or we're going to say that we can live with the consequences. Like one man said, just tell me the worst thing that can happen if I divorce my wife and marry the woman I now love. What is the worst that can happen? And then I'll calculate the consequences and say, OK, those are manageable.

I'll live with those consequences in order that my desires might be fulfilled. And that's the nature of human beings. And that's why the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Our desires long to be deceived.

They love being deceived. They say to the mind to figure it out, figure it out, find some excuse, find some way to rationalize it. But I want what I want and I need it now at this moment.

Give it to me. So the mind goes into action and says, OK, I'll think this through and we'll figure out a way by which we can manage it. Man said to me, struggling with pornography, he said, you know, he said, it's not sin. He said God created the human body. He created it beautiful.

It's artistic, his symmetry. And we honor God by admiring his creation. How are you going to answer that argument? That's a pretty good argument, I'd say.

That's exactly what Eve's argument is. It's good for food. It's pleasant to the eyes. We honor God by admiring and accepting and eating his creation. Except for one thing. God built into these things hidden consequences, indiscernible by the human eye.

We can't see it. But these consequences, these dominoes are set up. And when we disobey, God has said one thing, we tell ourselves another, and we are in trouble, both in this life and in the life to come. Let me throw this in at no extra cost today, too.

You're getting some extras. No decision in this life is good if in eternity it turns out to be a bad decision. So if you're ever deciding is this a good thing or a bad thing, ask yourself 100 years from now, which decision will I wish I had made? So Eve gave priority to her perceptions. She gave priority to the serpent.

She gave priority to the immediate moment. And what is God's answer to the fact that we are desire driven? First of all, God gives us a new heart. He gives us new desires.

The more I studied this, the more material I had until I realized I have to boil it down somehow. All that you need to do is to take your concordance and look up the word desire or look up the word heart, which is often a synonym for desire. And you discover very interesting things that God says, oh, that they might have a heart that fears me. What God is saying is I want these people to have a desire to fear who I am.

Where do those holy desires come from but from God? And that's what the new birth is all about. God told Israel, he says, I will create a new heart within you. I'll take out the heart of stone, that heart of rationalization, that heart with all of its defense mechanisms.

I will take out that heart and I'll give you a heart that loves me. And that's what the new birth is all about. Met a woman this week who said to me, you know, my daughter is a born again Christian but I'm not. Then she began to criticize some of the beliefs of her daughter. And some of the beliefs that her daughter had were ones with which I disagree.

I do have to indicate that. But that's why you can't get to heaven without having a new heart. God declares us righteous but he changes us. It is Jonathan Edwards wrote his book on religious affections to talk about the internal changes of the heart that conversion brings about to try to help us distinguish between false conversion and genuine conversion. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation with a new desire for God's word, with a new desire for God. So God gives us a new heart. Secondly, and here's where the rub comes because I'm preaching largely to Christians today though I do hope that others, many others are listening. The rub comes this way. Okay, I'm a Christian but I still have unholy desires too. I'm a mixed bag. I've got desires that are holy and I've got unholy desires.

And it has to do with new ownership. Paul says, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires, there's the word, the desires of the flesh. Paul even indicated in Romans 7 that he himself struggled. He says, I war with these desires within me.

I want to do one thing, I end up doing another. And we know what that battle is all about. You read that text and it looks as if it's written about us. Walk in the spirit. In faith we are cleansed, in faith we walk by the spirit and then the spirit begins to take control and the holy desires begin to take over. You know there's that old legend that said that someone once asked an Indian or the Indian rather said, I have two dogs within me. I have an evil dog and I have a good dog and they fight it out within me.

We can identify with that and someone said which one wins and he says the one that I feed. So what you do is you feed through the word and through the fellowship of God's people and through prayer, you feed those holy desires and they become stronger and stronger. A new heart and a new ownership. Listen to verses like this.

You read them in new light after this message. It says in 37 Psalm, delight thyself also in the Lord and he will give thee the desires of thine heart. How can God give us the desires of our hearts when our desires are evil?

Of course he can't. He's talking about the new desires and even in the Old Testament before the ministry of the spirit was quite as expansive as it is in the new, people were converted. They had a new heart with new desires. It says in the Psalms that I will, God is speaking, I will fulfill the desires of those who fear me. Psalm 73, Asaph said whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none that I desire upon the earth except thee. That's the transformation of desires. There's a love of God. A new heart, new desires, new ownership and a whole new love, whole new love.

Do you know how difficult it is to battle these desires? In the New Testament there are just two instances where it says that if you're victorious you'll receive the crown of life. One is in the book of Revelation where it says those who are willing to die for their faith, be faithful unto death and I will give thee the crown of life. The only other place is in James 1 where it says that those who overcome temptation, those who are not dragged away by these desires will receive the crown of life.

Could it be that martyrdom is really not a whole lot worse than subduing the desires of the flesh, giving them to God and saying Lord my passion for you is greater than my passion to sin. There was a man in a church, claims to be a Christian, we won't judge him, we'll take him at his word, who heard a message on restitution and was so angry with the speaker that he really would not talk to the speaker who was preaching about restitution. Later on this man, the speaker, sat with this man and said you've got to tell me, cough it up, what's going on in your life? And he said well I'll tell you, he said, I'm receiving workman's compensation for the rest of my life because of an injury that I sustained.

But he said it was not an injury that I sustained at work, it was an injury that I sustained while on a vacation. So I lied, I filled out all the forms, and I'm getting paid for the rest of my life. And he said if you are right by what you're saying that God demands restitution and that we should be fully right with God and man, he said if I went back to the compensation board I would be thrown into jail. And this pastor said to him you know that that's really a small price to pay to be fully right with God. You know that is a small price to pay to be fully right with God. But the man wouldn't buy it. No, I'm going to live a lie until the day I die.

That even rhymes, I didn't realize that. I'm going to live a lie until the day I die. Bottom line, is his passion for God greater than his passion to hide his sin and get by with deceit and dishonor God through dishonesty?

That's always the $64 thing. There is no way we can overcome these passions. Because it's not a matter of facts, it's not a matter of information.

You can argue until you're blue in the face and the whole issue is clear and somebody says I see your argument, I have no answer for them, but I'm going to do what I'm going to do. Because we are desire driven. Except for one fact. And that is the grief of God. The grief of God. And if we love him more than anything else, we will say no to the natural tendency to hide and justify our sin and say whatever the cost, I want to please almighty God. Walk in the spirit and you'll not fulfill the desires of the flesh.

Let's pray. Our Father, we are such deceitful creatures, so filled with ourselves, so unwilling to face up to what you reveal to us. Would you grant in the life of all of us a willingness to submit? A willingness to say, Lord, whatever the cost, whomever I have to go to, whatever I need to make right, whether it is going to prison or not, I love you so much, I will say no to the desires of the flesh and of the mind and I will pursue a holy passion. Help us to do that, oh Father, we ask, because we stand in great need of your liberating grace and power. Father, do in us only that which you can do. We reject all dependence upon human means, accept a cry to you and say, Father, here we are, we need your help, we need your mercy, and we need to be honest. Grant us that, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. My friend today, have you been blessed as a result of the ministry of running to win? Do sermons like the one that you have just heard inspire your soul, bring about rebuke, repentance, but also hope? The ministry of running to win exists to help people make it across the finish line, and we discuss a number of different topics, but I believe that this series is so critical, we'd like to make it available to you as a resource.

For a gift of any amount, you can go to rtwoffer.com, that's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Remember the sermon series is titled, Why Good People Do Bad Things, and you can ask for it and thanks in advance for your gift, rtwoffer.com, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. What we try to do in running to win is to expose the human heart, but also to expose the human heart to Jesus, who came to transform us from the inside. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614.

Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. We've all felt it, but some have felt it so deeply that it threatens to destroy them. Shame! This emotion can be a paralyzing curse, driving us to do things we would not otherwise do. Tomorrow don't miss The Curse and Cure of Shame. Thanks for listening. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.