Living In The Shadows – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. When sin entered the human race, our consciences were defiled. We moved into the shadows, hoping to hide from the consequences of what we've done. And when our deeds are exposed, our first instinct is to blame someone else.

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 didn't seem to take long for the fall of mankind in Eden to manifest itself. You know, Dave, I couldn't help but think, even as you were giving the intro, that Adam and Eve had marriage problems. As a matter of fact, I have frequently thought of how the argument probably went in private, that is not mentioned in scripture, after Adam had the nerve to blame his wife for their disobedience.

And she, of course, blamed the serpent. And so the whole history of the human race has been tainted as a result of that. You think, for example, of their children. You think of Cain and Abel.

Cain kills his brother because of jealousy. We think of all of this contamination that sin brought into the human world. And we, of course, are a part of that. That's why I believe that this series of messages about the power of a clear conscience is so important. All of us have a conscience. All of us understand what it's like to have that conscience trouble us. And sometimes we don't know what to do with it. And I'll tell you this, it's so easy for us to say, well, we simply confess our sin to God.

But how do we deal with sin against other people? This series of messages will eventually, of course, deal with those issues as well. For a gift of any amount, we're making a book available for you entitled The Power of a Clear Conscience. Now, it's been my privilege to write a number of books, and I have to say that when it comes to personal issues, I think that this is one of the most important. Here's what you can do.

Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. The title, The Power of a Clear Conscience. Listen, the fall has affected all of us.

And so what happens now is you have the compartmentalization of our lives because there's that which we want to hide. And then what you have is blaming. You remember God says, Adam, why did you eat?

And what did he say? The first person to blame is God. He said, Lord, this woman, this weak willed woman whom you gave me, whom you, you gave me, she took up the tree.

And then what's a guy supposed to do? He's got to eat. I mean, his wife is eating. If you had given me a better wife, this wouldn't have happened. She's to blame. Now you've heard me say this from the pulpit a number of times, but I need to say it again. And that is that Adam blamed his wife, even though there wasn't a chance in the world that he had married the wrong one.

Do you notice that? And then of course, God comes to the woman and says, well, why did you eat? And she, well, the serpent beguiled me. The man blamed the woman. The woman blamed the serpent and the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on.

And the whole history of the human race now is being written. As soon as sin is exposed, it's his fault. It's her fault. It's the kid's fault. It's the employer's fault.

It's never my fault. People are going to defend themselves right to the last farthing. Camus, the secular philosopher said, each of us insists on being innocent at all costs, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself. We'll defend ourselves. We'll dig in our heels. If we need to lie, we'll lie.

If we can't lie, we'll tweak. We'll blame because we have to hide ourselves from God, from others, and even from ourselves. The problem is the conscience does not forget. Well, God takes the initiative. God takes the initiative.

Adam and Eve probably thought this. You know what we'll do? We'll eat of the fruit of the tree. And if it doesn't work out very well, if it turns out bad, we can just stop eating from the fruit of that tree and we'll go back to the good trees in the garden.

You know, we'll handle those consequences. Well, one of the things that God does at the end of the chapter, you can read it there in verse 24, he drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherry of them and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the tree of life. He did not want them to eat now of the fruit of the tree or if forever they'd have been sinners, forever they'd have lived in their earthly body. So God says, you can't go back to Eden. You can't go back to innocence. And my friend today, you can't go back. You cannot get your virginity back.

You've had an abortion. You cannot have the child back. You can't go back to the beginning. You can't get your reputation back in certain circumstances. You can't redo your parenting so that your kids turn out better. You can't pray like the teenager did. Oh God, I pray that this accident might not have happened.

The past is past and you can't go back. God says, I'm going to drive you out. Now the question is this, what is the answer to this? What is the conclusion to this? God says, I come looking for you.

Do you notice this? Adam and Eve weren't in the garden saying, Oh, I wonder where we can find God. Let's run to see if we can find him. God becomes looking for them. And the Bible says that there is no one who seeks after God.

No, not one. You say, well, I sought after God. Yes, you did. It's because God took the initiative and God began a search and he found you and he found me in our own garden. God came looking for us.

You have not chosen me. I've chosen you, said Jesus. And so what we find, what we find is God comes looking for them. And what was their condition when he came looking for them? Verse seven, the eyes of both were opened.

What Satan said was partially true. They now experienced evil and the eyes of them were opened and they knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And ever since that time, man is looking for fig leaves. Fig leaves that drive people to success. Fig leaves that say nobody is ever going to see me as inadequate. It's not just that I'm going to dress nicely. It's going to be that I'm going to be a success in my business. I'm going to trample on anybody that I need to trample on to get my way because I want to ascend the ladder. I want people to look at me and to say, look at how significant I am and I will pay any price.

I'll destroy my family. I'll do whatever I need to do, but I need to look good and I need to personally be satisfied because I need these fig leaves to cover my own sin and my own inadequacy. Search for fig leaves. There are even those who say that our worship should be for ourselves, not for God.

The desire to say, I'm number one, just worship me and we'll get along well, but in the process I'm going to do all that I can to discredit you so that I look better than you do. Fig leaves. And so the whole process of human nature goes on. And then because of the hollowness of the fig leaves and the emptiness, they don't know where to turn.

So it's alcoholism and drugs and for many people, suicide because all of the fig leaves don't work. Well, that's man's answer to his shame, to his nakedness. God has his answer. Notice in verse 21, it says, and the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skin and clothed them.

Wow. So where did God get the garments of skin? Well, obviously God killed animals.

He had created some and he killed some. What God is saying right at the beginning is this, there is no cheap covering for sin. You can't cover your sin no matter how well it is hidden. Only God can do that and he does it through the sacrifice ultimately of Jesus Christ who sheds his blood as a ransom for sin. That is going to be God's answer to sin and it's not cheap. It cost him the death of his son and the whole drama of redemption. What that means now is that sin can be covered. The mess cannot be cleaned up oftentimes. The consequences are going to be there.

I remember as a boy when we spilled some oil on a concrete floor out on the farm, you know, we couldn't really clean it up. You try to, and the patch is still there, but if you want to do something on that concrete floor, you just put a tarp over it. You cover it. But God's covering is going to do more than to simply throw a covering over it and pretend it never happened. God is now going to work more deeply in the human heart so that it is not just that we are legally forgiven, but it is because of the fact that our hearts are actually cleansed. And we're going to talk about that in this series of messages because God is going to purge the conscience, the Bible says, so that you not only are forgiven, but you know the forgiveness so that you can look into God's face and the face of everyone else with joy and openness and freedom because your conscience has been made clear. So what God says here is that eventually as we work through the series, the accusations will stop. You'll be able to sleep at night. Oh yes, there may be reconciliation issues most assuredly, but God is going to lead us so that we are actually at peace with him and with others.

Now when Adam and Eve received God's covering, did that mean that everything had go well from that time on? No, I can imagine that they had a huge argument that evening and they're still arguing over whose fault is it? Well, you did it first. Yeah, but you were standing there.

Okay, sure. I was standing there, but who actually took the first bite and how is this going to be resolved? And look at the mess. Now don't look at me. Look at yourself, Adam. Didn't God say that you are to be the head of my home?

You know, he's the one that he's going to hold you responsible and God does hold Adam responsible. So what were you doing in the garden? How come you were standing beside me? Why didn't you say something?

Can't you just imagine it? Because the covering of God meant that they could now have fellowship with God again, but all of the human issues that relate to conscience were still boiling within their home and then eventually they raise Cain and what an experience that is. Then, oh, Adam, look at what your son did today. Eve, you're the one that bore him. You spent more time raising him than I did.

I was out in the field. Look at what happened. Cain kills Abel. The whole history of the human race falls apart as evil has its way and you and I are caught in that huge vortex of evil, born with a sin nature, coming into this world under condemnation, struggling with conscience issue, struggling with integrity. But the good news is Jesus came to rectify the mess and to give us hope. And the big issue today is not the greatness of your sin. You can be here today and have committed the biggest sin imaginable. Someday I'll tell you about a book I read this summer where Hitler's cronies, several of them, came to saving faith in Jesus Christ as the result of the witness of Chaplain Gerke. Would that be okay with you when you get to heaven and find out that some of Hitler's men who did such atrocities are in heaven or would you say, what are these guys doing here? And they might come up to you and shake your hand and say, could you tell me something?

What are you doing here? Because grace is now going to be offered to a fallen human race. At every message that I preach in this series, I'm going to give you something to memorize. I want you to know by next week, Psalm 32 verses one and two was actually read to us this morning and I memorized it in the King James where it has all the hymns and the he's. But of course that refers to women.

It refers to children. That's the way it was in the Old Testament. And I'm going to quote those verses to you because they were written by a man who committed murder and adultery, couldn't clean up the mess, but God restored the joy of his salvation because he dealt with his conscience. The words are blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. I want you to know despite his terrible, terrible sin and the consequences, David ended with a clear conscience and so can you and so can I. Jesus went into the upper room and he said to the disciples before his death, take eat.

This is my body. This is the cup that I give you symbolizing my blood, which is going to be shed for sinners because I'm going to cover your sin. I'm going to rejuvenate you so that you can have a clear conscience and you can rejoice regardless of your past. That's the agenda for the next messages. And now if you've never received Christ as savior, you are here at the Moody church.

You are listening online by CD, by radio, whatever. You can receive Christ right now because the teaching of scripture is there's nothing that the serpent could do to keep God from rescuing humanity and showing grace. Isn't that wonderful? There's nothing that the serpent could do. He had to stand by and watch God cover sin and he can cover yours today. You pray with me. Father, we ask in Jesus name that you might use these messages to bring about transformation and hope to all. And we pray father for those who have never received Christ as savior.

Draw them in. May your grace draw them as they realize that despite their past, you can cover their sin and they can know you. Thank you for the preciousness of the blood that does it. If you believed on Jesus, even where you are listening now, you may do that. Say Jesus today I accept your offer of grace in his name. We pray.

Amen. You know, my friend, the Bible says that human beings who are left to their own devices, who reject God, they suppress the truth. That means they learn to live with a guilty conscience without any hope. Many of them go into drugs and alcoholism.

Why? So that they can put up with themselves and the conscience that troubles them. In the book entitled The Power of a Clear Conscience, which I have written in this book, I help people to understand a number of different things. First of all, if you have a guilty conscience, it might not be your fault. There are things that people do against us that make us feel guilty.

How do we sort all that out? And what is the door of hope in the midst of hopelessness? You know, for a gift of any amount, we're making this book available for you. And I have to say this, that I believe very strongly it will help you in your spiritual journey.

It'll help you to get beyond the past, beyond the guilty conscience, and you'll begin to live with a sense of freedom and have confidence toward God. Now, I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'm going to be giving you some contact info. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com. RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now, even as you connect with us, we want you to remember that we are dependent upon your prayers. We are dependent upon your gifts.

Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com. Time once again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. The old hymn asks God to revive us again.

An anonymous listener has this question for you, Pastor Lutzer. When and how often is the word revival used in the New Testament? And what does revival mean? When was the first revival and how much time is there between revivals?

I find your question very interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, I don't think that the word revival occurs in the New Testament. Now, I've never done a search, but I'm just thinking about the number of times that I've read the New Testament.

I don't ever recall coming across that word. If you look at the Old Testament, it is true that they had revivals. The revivals happened when a king, for example, would call people together and ask the nation to repent and so forth. Under Josiah, there was a revival.

He insisted that the law of the Lord be read, and a copy of it was found in the temple under a whole bunch of junk, apparently. And so there was a revival among the people. Is the concept of revival biblical? Yes, it is in this sense, and now I'm talking about New Testament, in this sense that God wants us to be revived.

He wants us to be alive. Revival is to mean that you're to revive that which is dead. I've known revivals in churches. I've even been a part of a revival that swept a certain area where you have the Holy Spirit working mightily, bringing people to Jesus Christ and helping Christians to deal with sin. Can I just take a moment and help you to understand that in America, we've had three periods of revival, 1740 to 43, under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, Whitfield, and Wesley.

Many, many people were converted, an unusual number percentage wise. So that is known as the first great awakening in America. And then second 1790 to 1860, that was a different kind of revival. That began in Kentucky, actually. If any of you are listening and you live near Cane Ridge, there was a great period of revival.

People came from all over, and that spread throughout the whole western part of the United States as the nation was being developed. And then 1857 to 1859, there was an awakening which was not led by any pastor. It was led by lay people, and it was a prayer revival. Here in Chicago, there used to be the Metropolitan Tabernacle. It's been torn down. But that theater was filled at noon with people praying.

In fact, you couldn't get in. And the mayor of the city at that time, Wentworth, said that there has not been a revival of religion this great since the days of Edwards. Believe it or not, D.L. Moody attended some of those prayer meetings, and that was part of the reason why he himself was pushed into the great revival ministry and evangelistic ministry that he had. Well, my answer has been rather long, but I hope it's been helpful to understand that we should pray for revival if by that we mean that we as churches come alive powerfully for God. A look at revivals from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. 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. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Much of the shame we may carry is our own doing, bad decisions, wrong choices. But sometimes we carry guilt for things that are not our doing. Next time on Running to Win, we learn that sometimes it's not all your fault. Thanks for listening. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.