The Father of Lies

November 27 (John 8:44)
I grow weary of people who always present a picture of Jesus as the kind, benevolent, loving, never judgmental, mealy mouthed girlie man they apparently think He was at His first coming. Certainly He was benevolent. Certainly He was kind. Certainly He was loving. Those are all qualities one would expect to see in a man who told us to love our enemies. What wearies me is those people who don’t also realize he used biting wit and unrelenting insults when addressing liars and wicked men who claimed to be the religious leaders during the time He was physically on earth. John 8:44 is a perfect example of what I mean. How anyone could suggest it is inappropriate to do what He did is beyond me. His response, as recorded in John 8, was to a group of people who were claiming to be descendants of Abraham, which they were, as the proof they were the chosen of God, which they were. They had just suggested He (Jesus) was a bastard child because everyone knew His mother was pregnant with Him before she married Joseph.

They still didn’t get it. They didn't have a clue that His immaculate birth was one of the many proofs of His divinity. Anyway, His response went like this, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, 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.” Wait a minute! Did Jesus just call people to whom He was speaking murderers, liars, and children of the devil? On another occasion He called the Pharisees serpents, a brook of vipers, and hypocrites. I think His example tells us something that is often missing from our interactions with one another as Christians. First of all it is crucial to understand God does not love murderers, liars, and hypocrites. I did not say nor did I mean He does not forgive any such people who repent of their sin in humility and seek Him. He does not turn away anyone who repents in humility and seeks to bring glory and honor to Him. And He does indeed command us to love our enemies. In Romans 12:20 Paul adds some interesting insight to the reason we should love our enemies when he quotes Proverbs 25:22, “BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD." Of course, our motivation for feeding our enemy is not to heap burning coals on his head, but the point is that an enemy is dumfounded when fed by one he considers his enemy. He doesn’t know how to deal with such kindness. And Jesus’ point was that when we do that we are demonstrating we are different from the rest of the world’s citizens. We demonstrate we are above the petty foolishness that makes most people love or hate those with whom they have dealings each day.

Our point for today is that it is not ungodly to use appropriate language to rebuke people who are leading great multitudes astray with their lies and demonic doctrine. People like Joel Osteen, Robert Schuler, Rick Warren, the entire gambit of preachers from the emerging church movement, and any who preach things like God wants everyone to be fat, happy, rich, and free from illness must be confronted about their false doctrine. Joel Osteen is leading thousands of people into the pits of hell with his “God wants everyone to be a positive thinker message;” and that’s the gospel message he preaches every time he gets center stage. He and the hundreds of other positive thinking preachers are liars, children of their father the devil, serpents, and vipers. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with being a positive thinker; that isn’t the problem. The problem is with the one who preaches that’s the gospel. When one welcomes homosexuals into his church without telling them such behavior is sin, all he's doing is helping them on their way to hell. I once advised a mother, who publicly proclaimed she loved her homosexual son, she might want to demonstrate her love for him by informing him his behavior was sin that would assure him a front seat in hell if he didn't repent. I thought for a while she was going to put a contract out on me for being so unloving (as she put it). It's staggering to me the number of people who think it is loving to help people feel good about their sinful behavior.

In closing, I think it is important for Christians to be informed enough about what God’s word says that we are able to confront false teaching and do it effectively. I am not suggesting that if I got a chance to speak face to face with Rick Warren I would immediately go for his jugular. I would begin any initial conversation asking him something like why he never attempts to deal with drunks by explaining to them drunkenness is sin. I would ask him things like why he writes a book on dealing with alcoholics and refuses to call ungodly behavior sin. I would ask Robert Schuler something like how much time he spent daily studying or even reading God’s word. I would ask him when he actually repented of his own sinful life, got baptized by immersion, and began walking the narrow path in the footsteps of Jesus he claims to be walking. Those kinds of questions quickly bring to the forefront the unbiblical things those false teachers teach. Then, if in a public forum one of them were to call me a bastard child or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I’d change my rhetoric and demeanor immediately and act in a manner appropriate to the changing circumstances.

I’m often rebuked rather severely by positive thinking, God loves everyone, gurus or people who claim they are born-again, followers of Christ. It’s almost comical the incredibly nasty language some of them use to describe me while suggesting I’m being unloving for pointing out the heretical teachings of others. Jesus made it abundantly clear, and Paul speaks to the issue countless times in his letters to the churches, that there would be such teachers forever and always and that we must shut them up yesterday. I have personally observed and confronted dozens of men and women teaching heresy in churches in America. I will continue to do so. It makes me a very unpopular person in the small town where I live. Many accuse me of being arrogant and nasty tempered for doing it. It goes with the territory. False teachers and their followers did the same to Jesus, Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They did it to every single prophet in ancient Israel; and they’ve been doing it for centuries to anyone who exposes them. No one likes having the light shined on them when they want to work in the dark. Please take this admonition to heart. If everyone loves you, you're doing somehting terribly wrong. I only have about ten people in this world who I believe are friends in any really significant sense. They're probably the only people in the world who would drive more than five miles to attend my funeral. The only overwhelming obsession I have in life is to be pleasing to my God and Savior Jesus Christ. That even makes great multitudes of people who say they are born-again believers uncomfortable being around me. I wouldn't have it any other way.