Fake News

Revelation 12:10b–11 (ESV)

…for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.  And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

These two words have been almost overused lately – “Fake News.”  It seems like any time someone doesn’t like something a politician says or something in news, this becomes the accusation.  “That’s fake news!”   Well today I want to use that phrase.  However, I am not going to warn you about something fake a politician has said, or something fake I heard on the news.  I want to warn you about the worst purveyor of “fake news” – Satan!

Even his names tell you that He is someone not to be believed.  The word “Satan” means “adversary.”  That’s what He is – our enemy!  He is not on our side.  He doesn’t want anything good for us.  He wants only evil for us.  The other common name is “The Devil.”  This name means “accuser.”  That’s what he does.  We see him doing this in the first chapters of Job… accusing Job of having faith only because God protects him.  “Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.  But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”   Satan is constantly whispering accusations in your ear and mine.  “How can you call yourself a Christian?  There’s no way God could love someone like you.”

There is something you and I need to know about those accusations – they are the original “Fake News!”

Listen to what John writes about the devil in Revelation 12.  And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…  He is the deceiver of the whole world.  Or listen to Jesus in John 8. “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  The “heart language” of Satan is to lie.  That’s what comes most naturally to him. 

His temptations are all lies.  They very often are the most effective kind of lies – half truths.  He promised Adam and Eve, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Well its true that they would be taking to themselves the knowledge or discernment of good and evil.  But they wouldn’t become God. Though they and all of us, try to take His place in our lives, we can’t handle the job.  We make a mess.  That was a lie.  Temptation is always like that – telling you how great it will be for you if you do some sinful thing.  And there is often a kind of pleasure for a moment.  But it’s superficial.  It’s a lie.  It soon leads to a great emptiness… to guilt… One of the biggest pieces of fake news out there is this – the thought that runs through your mind or mine that there is no way God could love you or me because we do not deserve such love.  While it’s true that we don’t deserve God’s love, the idea that there is no way God could love us is a lie.  That’s fake news.

What do we do in the face of such a brazen enemy?  How do you counter such fake news?  With the truth.  I love the words from Revelation 12:10-11.  There is so much powerful good news in these verses.  “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.  And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”    What a great explanation of the meaning of our Lord’s life, death, resurrection and ascension!  Salvation and the Kingdom of God have come.  The enemy has been defeated, thrown down.  His days are numbered.  I know that times – as you look at the world and all the evil – it seems as if the Gospel is “fake news.”  It’s not.  The Gospel is good news you can count on.  After all, Jesus who died, is alive.  He has risen.  His tomb is empty.  The Gospel is true.

That Gospel truth is the great weapon that defeats Satan’s “fake news” every time.  Listen to John describe how armed with the Gospel, we are able to overcome the lies of the enemy.  And they (that’s us)  have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony… Yes its true that you and I are sinners but our sin has all been paid for by the blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross.  We are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb of God.  There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Because of Jesus, we can tell the devil to shut His mouth.  If we don’t Jesus will! 

Please notice that the devil is also conquered “by the word of their testimony…”  The only way Satan wins is if he can convince us that our witness… that our testimony to Jesus will do no good… only if he can convince us to be afraid to share the good news of the Gospel.  But every time you and I have the courage to share Jesus… to tell others about His love… to give our testimony to God’s love, Satan is conquered by that good news.

The gospel is the one and only answer needed to the fake news of the enemy!  After all the Gospel is the Good News that is the very power of God unto salvation…  Amen!

Team or Life is not all about You... or Me

2 Corinthians 5:15

“He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

This week, I was asked to lead a devotion at the opening practice of a Little League All Star team.  The team has selected a great verse from 1 Corinthians 12:12 as their team verse.  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”  The coach wanted me to help the players understand what this verse means as believers and as baseball players.  Thus, when I arrived, I have all the players line up around home plate and lay out in front of them their different pieces of baseball equipment.  I asked them to pick up the bat first and asked, “What if this was the only piece of equipment you could use – on offense or defense?  They tried to figure out ways you could use the bat on defense – but it wouldn’t work.  Then I asked, “What if you could only use the glove to hit the ball?  What if all you could use was the baseball?  What if you had to use your bare hands to hit the ball?”  The point is obvious.  Each piece of equipment has its purpose and is needed for the game.  In the same way, each player has different abilities, strengths and weaknesses.  No one player makes the team.  This was true even for the great Michael Jordan.  The Bulls didn’t win till he learned to play as part of the team.  All the players on the team are important.  Team is not all about anyone of us – not all about me or you.

That’s true in Church and in life.  God has not designed us so that we don’t need other people.  He has not designed us to be able to make it on our own.  Church and life are not all about me… or you.  We forget that far too often, to everyone’s harm.  I know I do.  In fact, I forgot this the other night at a Church meeting.  I was advocating a certain program. I firmly believe I was leading in the right direction.  At one point, however, I made it all about whether people were agreeing with me.  I said, “Well if you don’t want to do this, that’s fine.  But you won’t have my support.”  I have thought about it since and realized that with that statement – I made it all about me… about me having this ridiculous need to have everyone agree with me…   For some reason, many times in order to feel good about ourselves, we have this need to have everyone see it our way.  That’s the very definition of co-dependence.  The reason for wanting as many to be together on the issue was not my need… or shouldn’t have been.  It was the fact that this program is the right thing and what God wants us to do.  It’s about Him, not me!

We all forget that. We all fall in to the trap of making it all about me.  I have seen it again and again in churches.  Someone doesn’t get their way.  The church goes in a different direction.  That person walks out in protest, or threatens, “Well then maybe I need to go to a different church.”  In other words, maybe I need to take my ball and go home.  I have couples come in for marriage counseling.  Almost inevitably the most use word will be “me.”  “He doesn’t listen to me.”  “She is always trying to control me.”   ME! ME! ME!  God did not design marriage to be all about me or you.  “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”  “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”  He wants marriage to be all about Him so that we can love and serve the other person. Another example – in hard times people ask, “God why is this happening to me?  Why are you doing this to me?  What did I do to deserve this?”  God’s answer is, “Life is not all about you.”  That’s the point of the opening verses of John 9.  As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.   And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

This wanting to life to be all about me is at the heart of sin.  Our first parents took the fruit and ate it because they wanted to be like God.  They wanted their lives to be all about them, not Him.  That’s why Jesus came… to change all that.  Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” He refused not to make life all about Him.  He came “not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.”   He got up and washed the feet of the disciples.  He prayed in the Garden, “Never the less, not my will but thy will be done.”  He died on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again that all who believe in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.” 

Why did Jesus do all this?  “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”  This is such an important life lesson.  When we make life all about ourselves – we make ourselves and everyone miserable.  We so dissension and conflict.  The truth is God created us to be servants and not masters… to submit to His way not demand ours… Remember that team, or church or life is not all about you or me.   It’s about Him!