The devil is in the business of telling lies. And surveys reveal that 70% of believing Christians don’t believe in the existence of he devil. 70% – so it seems that the devil’s greatest lie, which is that he doesn’t exist at all, is working an absolute treat

I had someone ask me the other day with quite some scepticism in their voice, “You don’t actually believe that there’s a devil do you?” It was that kind of intimidating tone that says if you answer yes then you must be a blithering idiot. You know that tone right? You don’t actually believe that there’s a devil, do you?

And my answer was, “Sure I do. Absolutely I do. A thousand times yes I do.” At which point the look on their face told me that as far as this person was concerned their suspicions about me were confirmed. Yes, that Berni Dymet is a blithering idiot, a religious nut, a fundamentalist.

With a little smile on my face I asked this person, “Do you kind of want to know why I believe that there’s a devil?” I guess, a bit of uncertainty and slight hesitation, a suspicion, a slight fear they were about to be bashed over the head with a Bible (which they needn’t have feared because my Bible is a tablet computer and I’d break the screen so I wouldn’t do that.)

“Yeah I guess”, was the tentative answer. “Well let me tell you the reason I believe in the devil”, what I told him. “I don’t mean that somehow I put my trust in him, but I believe in his existence and the reason I do is because clearly Jesus does.” “What?” “Sure,” I said, “Jesus absolutely believes in the existence of the devil.” That’s where the conversation ended.

Here’s an interesting set of statistics. The Barna group is a highly respected research organisation in the US. They conducted a survey on spiritual beliefs and attitudes. Lots of findings but here are a few that you might find interesting.

1871 self described Christians were asked about their perception of God. 78% said that He’s all powerful, all knowing and the creator of the universe who rules the world today. 40% strongly agree that satan is not a living being but simply a symbol of evil. An additional 19% said they agree somewhat with that perspective, a total of 59%.

Only 26% disagreed strongly with that preposition and 9% disagreed somewhat with that statement, the rest weren’t sure. So let’s do the maths here, 78% of self described Christians believe in an all powerful God, 69% almost as many, don’t believe in a real personal force of evil, the devil and a further 8% aren’t sure.

And add the 69% and the 8% and you get 77%, so boiling it right down to basics about the same number of people who call themselves Christians both believe in God but don’t believe in Satan or they’re not quite sure.

Incidentally most Christians surveyed didn’t believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit either. When asked to respond to the statement, “The Holy Spirit is just a symbol of Gods power or presence but not a living entity,” 58% either agreed or agreed strongly with that statement.

Now I don’t know where you’re at. One person listening today may be a Bible believing Christian the next one may not. You may never once in your life have ever considered the possibility that Jesus is who He says He is.

But wherever you are let’s look at those survey results objectively and dispassionately for a moment. Almost 80% of Christians believe in an all powerful God which begs the question, what do the other 20% believe in? Why do they call themselves Christians in the first place?

Nevertheless round figures 80% of people believe in God, almost exactly the same number that don’t believe in the devil or weren’t sure and you have to say to yourself, “wow that’s really weird. That’s among Christians.” So the statistics of people who don’t believe in the devil amongst people who aren’t Christians would be even higher.

Today I’m kicking off a series of ten messages called ‘The Top 10 Lies that The Devil Wants You To Believe’ and when I was planning that all out my first instinct was to say, look the top lie, numero uno, would have to be that God doesn’t exist but when you look at the research that’s not what it tells us. The top number one lie that the devil wants you and me to believe is that he doesn’t exist.

Do I find that in my Bible? Absolutely I do. He makes his first appearance in God’s Word pretty early on in the piece. So when this personal force of evil appears to deceive and to tempt Adam and Eve, how does he do it? Does he rock up as the devil with horns and an evil face, dressed in black and red, pitch fork in hand, breathing fire, smoking around the edges?

Does he introduce himself? Does he say, “Hi Adam, hi Eve, I’m satan your local personal force of evil, I’m here to tempt you and to lead you away from God and to ruin your life?” No. Genesis chapter 3, verse 1:

The serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say to you ‘you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘No, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden nor shall you touch it or you’ll die.’

But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You won’t die because God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes and the tree was to be desired to make you wise she took of it’s fruit and she ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made loin cloths for themselves.

See Satan came disguised as a serpent, a snake. He came breathing lies, twisting what God had said to Adam and Eve.

When I was in the military one of the arts of warfare that they taught us was the art of deception. The art of making things appear to be something that they weren’t in order to trick our enemy for the sole purpose of killing him. They taught us the art of camouflage, to hide from the enemy.

In fact the snipers took that to the enth degree. I remember once when we were on exercise and we were told that there were three snipers concealed in this rather small patch of forest and they told us to walk around openly to see if we could find them. We didn’t find a single one and when the instructors said to the snipers to stand up, one of them stood up within just a few feet of where I was, I mean I couldn’t believe it and that’s exactly what satan does.

If he can somehow make us believe that he doesn’t exist at all he can just sit there and take pot shots at us all day and ruin our lives and you know he’s a very good shot. Gods Word tells us this, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 14:

No wonder even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

He’s into camouflage. So if you want to sneer at the notion that someone believes in the existence of the devil go right ahead. Stand in the snipers field of fire and let him take pot shots all he likes. Me? I’m going to do what God says. We each have our choices to make, I absolutely believe God when He says through the Apostle Paul that we shouldn’t be ignorant about the designs and the deceptions of Satan so that we aren’t outwitted by him, 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11.

Or when He says through the Apostle Peter that we should keep alert because like a roaring lion our adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour, 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8. I guess C S Lewis sums it up the best for me. C S Lewis was the author of Narnia and a great theologian. He writes this:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence; the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail the materialist or a magician with absolutely the same delight.

Satan’s number one lie is to conceal himself so that we’re tricked into thinking he doesn’t exist. And his second greatest lie is to try to convince us that God doesn’t exist. If he can get us to believe both of those … it’s game over.

Let me ask you something, if you wanted to make sure that people didn’t get all of God’s blessings in their lives what would you do? How would you go about it? I mean if you wanted to deceive me, convince me that there is no God, that there is no greater being out there who wants the best for me, who loves me so much that He wants to share eternity with me, what would you say? What would you do? How would you deceive me? How would you go about it?

The reason I ask is that there is someone who wants to do just that. His name’s Satan and he’s intent on robbing us of God’s best and if he can convince us that there’s no God, well hey it’s game over. He can stop wasting his efforts on us and move on and concentrate on someone else.

Consider this statement from Bertrum Russell:

The objection to religion is two sorts, intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true. The moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.

In other words there can’t possibly be a God because look at the violent terrible people that God has used to reveal Himself but not all the devils deceptions about God are intellectual arguments, in fact 99% of them aren’t. If the devil can get us focused just on the here and now, looking down at the task at hand, then we don’t have time to look up to God.

I’ve had a see-sawing thing happen in my life when it comes to deciding whether or not there is in fact an all-powerful, all-loving God. As a child I went to Church with my parents regularly – most people did back then – but I can honestly say that not once did anything that happened at Church or anything that was said at Church or any of the songs that we sang at Church convince me that there was indeed a God.

In fact the thought never really occurred to me, it was just a ritual that we did. Going to Church was something that you did back then, it was meant to make a difference in your life. In fact as I look around there was nothing different or inspiring particularly about the people who attended that Church, it was just something you did. You understand?

In my mid to late high school years I encountered Jesus Christ for the first time in a powerful way through some friends, particularly a young mate of mine, Grant. I attended a Christian fellowship meeting at lunch time at school each week, we went on a few camps and it was all good.

But when the luxury of those idealistic high school years had finished, when I had to go out and earn a living and find my way in the world, when I confronted the harsh realities of life outside the covering and the blessing of my parent’s home things started to change.

And what changed is that I, like so many of my peers, hopped onto that treadmill of life, study, university, finding a career, finding a house, paying a mortgage, worrying about the car, what should I drive, what should people think about me, what sort of house should I live in, on and on and on? Pretty soon God was irrelevant, did God exist? Well maybe.

And as time went on that maybe became more and more tenuous. The idea that there might be a God became more and more distant until one day I probably really didn’t believe that there was a God. In fact when I finally cried out to God in a time of pain and distress about, all I could manage was something like, “God if you’re really out there then now would be a good time.” That’s all I had and fortunately that’s all He needed to hear.

Now I wonder in your day to day life, how’s it gone for you? For many people it isn’t the grand, apparently logical argument that convinces them that there is no God, it’s just the busyness of life, it distracts them from ever asking, from ever looking and for many people it’s not until they hit a brick wall that they even think about whether there’s a God.

You’ve heard that saying, “take time to smell the roses”, well most of us don’t. I’m convinced that if more people took time to smell the roses, if we took more time to breath in the fresh clean air around us, if we took time to go for a walk through the forest after a heavy rain storm or to sit on some craggy rock looking out at a dark angry ocean, if we took more time God would be a whole bunch more obvious to us.

Don’t believe me, listen to what the Apostle Paul said about how God reveals Himself, Romans chapter 1, verse 19:

For what can be known about God is plain to us because God’s shown it to us. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and his divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and been seen through the things he’s made.

So we’re without excuse. For though we knew God we didn’t honour him as God or give thanks to him but we became futile in our thinking and senseless in our minds, we were darkened.

In other words, if you take time to look around, I mean look at the wondrous beauty of the roses you smell, look at the birds of the air, look at the wonder of this world, the vastness, the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos. So big is the universe that for light to travel at one hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second from one end of the known universe to the other would take twenty billion years.

Look at the wonder of creation and tell me point blank that it was an accident. To me it takes a whole bunch more faith to be an atheist than a Christian. To me it seems incredibly far fetched to believe that in the beginning there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason which then turned into dinosaurs.

I’m sorry; I don’t mean to make light of it but that about sums it up for me. If the devil can have us believing that there is no one behind creation, if he can have us believing that all there is, is now, that’s what Richard Dawkins wants us to believe when he writes:

Be thankful that you have a life and forsake your vain presumptuous desire for a second one.

If the devil can just keep us with our heads down, living out the daily grind, he has won, slam dunk. That’s the lie, it’s a lie that permeates much of the thinking of our society; it’s a lie that permeates the life of many a man, many a woman, many a child as we etch out our existence on this planet earth.

But stop and think about it, stop and look around, stop and look up at the millions of stars of the Milky Way on a clear night, stop and notice the wonder of the intricate design of that rose you smell and it’s exquisite perfume, stop and notice all that Gods created and there’s a small voice inside that says, “there has to be something more, there just has to be.”

C S Lewis, the author of the Narnia series and a great theologian said something along these lines. He said, “in the absence of any other evidence the human thumb is enough to convince me of the existence of God. So great a feat of engineering did He consider the human thumb to be that He couldn’t look at it in any other way than as the evidence of the genius of God.”

The devil wants us to believe there’s no God, that there’s only and here and now. What a cruel lie that’s going to turn out to be for many, many people. So let me ask you this, when was the last time you smelt a rose? When was the last time you took a look at creation? When was the last time you asked yourself, “How did all this happen?” When was the last time you asked the question, “Does God really exist? Is He really concerned about my life?”

Maybe today’s the day to stop, to think, to observe, to ask.

The devil is a liar – and one of the lies that he wants you to go for, is that God’s Word isn’t true. Well … not true might be a bit tough. How about, it’s not relevant? Or this: but here doesn’t really apply these days does it? At list not this bit … and not that bit and …

It’s great to be with you again today and we’re continuing on in a series called ‘The Top 10 Lies that The Devil Wants You To Believe’. Now right up there you might be saying to yourself, “This guy on the radio is loopy. He believes in the existence of the devil”. And as we saw on Monday, you’d be in agreement with around 78% of people in the US who call themselves Christians because they don’t believe in the devil either.

That’s lie number 1; we looked at that on Monday. If the devil can trick us into believing that he doesn’t exist at all, bingo he’s won. He’s actually very good at that.

Lie number 2 which we explored yesterday on the program is that the devil works very hard to get us to believe that not only does he not exist but neither does God and if that doesn’t work then he moves onto lie number 3 which is “What God has to say isn’t true”.

And you see that lie for the very first time in only the third chapter of the first Book of the Bible. And so often what the devil does is he doesn’t confront us over the big truths head on, that would be too hard. Why try and knock over the tower through a full frontal attack? No, no! What he does is, he chips away at the foundations until the whole fortress just crumbles and all of a sudden we don’t know anymore what we believe. It’s just what he did to Adam and Eve.

We had a look at Satan’s first encounter with humanity on Monday but lets take another look at it from a different angle. Genesis chapter 3, verse 1:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden nor shall you touch it or you shall die.’

But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You won’t die because God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you’ll end up being like God, knowing good from evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make her wise she took of its fruit and she ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made loin cloths for themselves.

Do you notice how rather than taking on what God had said head on Satan comes along and disguises himself as a serpent and then twists the truth and dishes it up in a different form. God’s instruction to Adam and Eve was that you can have the whole blinking lot in the garden, just don’t touch this one tree smack bang in the middle, don’t eat the fruit and satan twists that into a lie saying:

Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?

Now Eve knows the truth so she feeds it back to the serpent, “No, hang on”, she says, “we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, it’s just this one tree right in the middle of the garden that God said ‘don’t touch and don’t eat from it or you’ll die’.”

Now you’d be thinking right there that that was an end to it but Satan’s smart. Instead of attacking the “do don’t’”truth of God he simply undermines the impact of doing that deed. God said, “Don’t do it because you’ll die”. Satan says, “No, no, no, you won’t die. What will end up happening is your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God, you’ll know as much as God, you’ll know the difference between good and evil.”

It’s not really a sin and even if it is it’s only a small one. That’s how he works and that’s how he works with the Bible too. He undermines God’s living Word and here’s how he does it.

There are parts of the Bible that we just can’t wrap our minds around. Some of the Old Testament law for instance, the punishments seem totally outrageous and so you can use those ones to undermine God’s Word.

The West Wing is one of the best TV series ever to come out of the US in my view. There’s a great scene in one of the episodes where President Bartlett attacks a not-so-nice talk show host on a particular issue and he hurls these Old Testament quotes in her face.

He says, ‘Look, I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery, a sanction in Exodus chapter 21, verse 7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluid Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn, what would a good price for her be?

My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus chapter 35, verse 2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obliged to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?

And here’s one that’s really important because I know we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus chapter 11, verse 7. If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame, can West Point?

‘Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made of two different threads? Think about those questions would you?

Now I think you’ll agree that President Bartlett character has something of a point with those. Not only do those laws not apply to us but it seems totally inconceivable that an all loving God would give such laws to His people through Moses.

And so therefore, Bartlett’s reasoning goes, everything in the Bible is up for grabs. There is no real truth, did God really say? You see how easy it is to get on that slippery slope? And yet at the same time there are clearly parts of the Bible written as it was over a few thousand years by a whole bunch of different people – the most recent Books having been completed almost two thousand years ago – there are parts of it that are bound not to make sense for us today.

Would we put any of those laws that Bartlett was talking about in an action today? Would we stone someone to death for planting two different crops next to each other? Would we stone a woman to death for wearing clothes made of different threads? Of course we wouldn’t. Therefore, the devils reasoning goes, a whole bunch of things are up for grabs.

Really the Bible is just a bunch of myths and legends. Maybe there are a few reasonable moral things in there but come on, that’s about it. That’s the devil’s logic and it’s very easy to follow his line of thinking, yet I believe there’s many hundreds and millions of people across the globe do.

But the Bible is the living Word of God, alive, sharper than a two edged sword. The hardest thing for people to agree to is not what the Bible says or whether the events recorded in it happened or whether it’s true, the hardest thing for people to agree on is what it means to us today, in a totally different time, a totally different culture from the times and the cultures in which it’s various Books were written.

That’s going to make a few Christians a bit squeamish. We try not to think about that or talk about that too much but it’s true. There are bits that clearly don’t make sense today. There are bits that clearly do. Which is which? That’s what the arguments are all about and the devil loves it.

For my part I believe the Bible is the living Word of God. Yes, there are bits of it that I struggle with, there are bit’s of it I don’t understand. The ethnic cleansing in the Book of Joshua is a great place to start and yet there is a power and a consistency and a truth to God’s Word, the Bible is undeniable.

Do I work hard in understanding not only what God says through His Word and how it applies to me today? Yeah I do. Much of the Bible is meant to be taken literally. Other parts, like the poetry in the Psalms, speaks to us in a different way. A Book like the Book of Revelations is a form of literature for which there is no direct parallel in 21st century English but is speaks powerful truths by painting pictures.

I’m a pretty hard nosed kind of guy, I don’t swallow fables easily but yet I have come to the conclusion, like the Apostle Paul, that the Word of God is exactly that. It is the living Word of God and that all Scripture is inspired by God, is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good word.

One of the greatest lies the devil loves telling us, is that really, we aren’t worthy of God’s love. And what’s more, we never will be. If he can make us think we aren’t who God says we are – bingo. He wins.

Have you ever found yourself doubting yourself? Who you are, what you’re capable of? Do you ever find yourself wondering whether God actually loves you, whether given the hash you made of things just last night He’s really going to forgive you this time? Whether you’re in the right place doing what you should be? Whether God has a plan for your life, a destiny for your future? Do you ever find yourself doubting that, well you know …?

That list of questions, that list of doubts, I’d be really surprised if at least one or two of those didn’t strike a bit of a chord with you. I heard someone say recently that these days when it comes to God it’s not so much guilt that many people experience, its uncertainty.

It kind of makes sense, we live in a world where these days just about anything goes, if it feels good you do it so whereas in the past people had a different moral code, something given to us by, I believe, God. Today we don’t have that same sense of right and wrong so we don’t experience guilt so much as the thing that ultimately convinces us that we need a relationship with Jesus.

But that’s been replaced by a sense of uncertainty. In a world full of so many choices, in a world where indeed anything does go, in a world where we’re told you can have it all, our experience is much more a sense of uncertainty about our worth, about the direction our life’s headed. In my experience that applies almost equally to those who don’t yet know Jesus personally and those that do.

It may sound a little bit odd, shouldn’t Christians be free from doubts about who they really are and where their lives are headed? Well you’d think so, after all in some respects that would be the whole point but in my experience many aren’t.

Just the other day a woman posted this on my blog. She said, ‘I feel that God doesn’t seem to want to help me for reasons I can’t understand. I pray and I pray and I pray and nothing ever seems to happen. Nothing ever seems to go right or if it does and I finally get the answer suddenly something else bad happens again. I try my hardest to serve Him and to love Him but things seem to go from bad to worse. I realise that God isn’t Santa Claus and that He’s required to give me everything I want but it’s frustrating when your prayers don’t seem to be answered the way they are for everyone else and when people who just couldn’t care less about God get the great life, I want victory but I just don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. God seems to be unpleasable.’

Now okay, Robyn is going through some difficult times but often that’s when we start questioning God, what’s going on? Is there something wrong with me? Why aren’t you answering my prayers? The questions go on and on. We all have them from time to time, they’re perfectly natural and here’s the thing, there’s a spiritual dimension to this, absolutely there is.

If our enemy the devil can convince us that things aren’t right with God, if he can convince us that Gods forgotten us, that He’s not on our case, that He’s unpleasable, if the enemy can convince us that really God should be like Santa Claus and He’s just not delivering, can you see how destructive that’s going to be?

Man, if Satan can just sew enough doubt in someone’s mind that God is unpleasable, that we can never be worthy, that we can never match up to Gods standards then can you see how the devil wins?

This is one of the huge lies that he perpetrates and actually it’s the lie that lies at the heart of Robyn’s problem. Her symptoms are the questions she’s asking but the uncertainty that she has, the anguish she feels, the pain is a symptom. It’s always a symptom, pain always points to disease and in Robyn’s case the disease is that she doesn’t know who she really is in Christ.

She believes in Jesus, she just doesn’t know what honour and blessing and status that confers on her. If she knew that God right there amidst her trials would be healing her disease.

Consider this powerful truth, its a Scripture that you don’t often hear quoted and yet it talks about the sharp contrast between the worlds standards and Gods wisdom in choosing us to be His people. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 beginning at verse 25:

For Gods foolishness is actually wiser than human wisdom and Gods weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call brothers and sisters, not many of you are wise by human standards, not many of you are powerful, not many of you are noble by birth but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not in order to reduce to nothing the things that are so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

He’s the source of your life in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption in order that, as it’s written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

Do you see how Robyn’s operating by the worlds standards? Now I’m not being critical of her at all, we all do this naturally. We look at who we are, our circumstances, where our life’s headed or not headed and we analyse that and decide we’re a mess, we’re not worth it.

God comes along and says this, ‘I didn’t choose you because you were some superstar, I didn’t choose you because you’re rich or noble by birth, I chose you because I love you. The world may not have chosen you, the world may think me a fool for having chosen you but I chose you to shame and confound those who think themselves wise. I chose you, the weak, to show my glory through you. So when people start to see the strength you have in your suffering, when they see how you overcome your suffering, they’ll see me in all my glory.’ That’s what God’s saying here through this Scripture.

Now let me ask you something, with all the doubts and the questions and the uncertainties that perhaps you’ve experienced in your life, does that give you a whole new perspective? Does that completely change things for you?

The moment, the instant we come to grips with the truth, the truth that God is with us, the truth that we’ve been chosen by Him, the truth that Jesus is the source of our life and our forgiveness and our right standing with God, our uncertainty now whimpers and turns into a boast, a boast in the Lord.

Look at what Jesus has done for me. I was weak, He came into my life, I’m strong. I was lost and now I’m found. Circumstances become irrelevant, our failures, our weaknesses, the apparent directionlessness of our lives become totally irrelevant because in Christ we have a new life, in Christ we are set free, in Christ we have a future and a hope and a solid foundation. He is the rock on which we stand.

So when the devil comes sewing seeds of doubt about who we are really in Christ we can boldly proclaim that we didn’t receive a spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear but we received a spirit of adoption.

When we cry FATHER it’s that very Holy Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if we’re children then we’re heirs, heirs and in fact joint heirs with Jesus since we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

If God’s for us who can be against us? He didn’t withhold His own Son but He gave Him up for all of us, won’t He also give us everything else? Who’s going to bring a charge against Gods elect? It’s God who justifies, whose going to condemn us? It’s Jesus Christ who died and was raised again who’s at the right hand of God who indeed intercedes for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? No. In all of these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I’m convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor death nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

The biggest lie of the devil that keeps people from going to God in the first place and causes them to turn their backs and walk away from God in the second … is that … you’ve blown it! This time you’ve gone too far. God’s never going to forgive that sin now is He. It’s all over. Well – that’s a lie!

Hey, today we’re going to talk about the single biggest thing that keeps people from having a relationship with God, the single biggest thing. It impacted my life, for twenty years it kept me from God, two decades, what is it? You’re going to find out in a moment.

I’m really looking forward to our time together today because as we’ve been doing for the first four days of this week we’re about to blow another one of the devil’s lies right out of the water. This series of messages is called ‘The Top 10 Lies The Devil Wants You To Believe’ and today, today we’re going to look at the lie that he feeds us, we just aren’t worthy of God.

And do you know the power of this lie? Do you know why it’s so affective? Do you know why it kept me from God for two decades of my life? Here’s why, because in actual fact it’s true. It’s just that it feeds on our paranoia.

Paranoia maybe a strong word here but I just read a tweet the other day that said that the main ingredient to hand sanitiser is paranoia. It’s true, basic hygiene, soap and water absolutely but at what point did we have to start sterilising the living daylights out of everything from our hands to the kitchen sink? At what point did it become absolutely vital to kill 99.9% of germs on the planet?

Well here, it happened at the point that some marketeer figured out that he could make money by feeding our paranoia. They took the simple truth that you need to wash your hands and twisted it.

That in a sense is what the devil does, he feeds on our paranoia. He takes a simple truth that we’re not worthy of Gods love in and of ourselves and we aren’t, we’ve all sinned, we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God and he kicks off a marketing campaign, a negative one as opposed to the hope that hand sanitiser appears to bring, that not only are we not worthy of God but there is no possible way that we ever will be ever again, slam dunk, game over.

If I sound particularly passionate about this one it’s because I am. It’s because, as I said earlier this lie kept me from having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ for a good twenty years of my life. And it’s made even more powerful when it’s used in combination with lie number one that we looked at on Monday which is that the devil doesn’t exist.

I was totally unaware that the devil existed at all let alone that he was behind this lie, fuelling it in my heart. See I couldn’t face God, I couldn’t because deep down I knew that the way I was living my life didn’t honour Him. I absolutely knew that what I had to do was to clean up my act before I approached God otherwise He would judge me, punish me, rub me out, I don’t know.

This thinking based on the devil’s lies causes many a person never to go to God in the first place and it causes many a person to turn their backs on God for that very same reason, because they’re not worthy and they’re afraid of the consequences.

A few years ago I received this email from a young man who listened to one of these A Different Perspective programs. I’ve kept it because it had a powerful impact on me. Have a listen to what he wrote.

I’m only a new Christian and I’ve been with the Lord probably about ten weeks and I’ve been going great guns and then I had a night when I went out drinking and I told my friend I wasn’t sure if I could be a Christian anymore.

I felt really terrible about it and I thought I’d really blown the whole thing with God. It’s only when you guys came on the radio that I realised that’s why Jesus died for me. Thank God for His grace, it was a really awesome night tonight.

Of course it was awesome, he thought he was lost, he thought all was lost and then he heard the Good News of the grace of Jesus Christ. This young man was fed a lie by the devil because the devil knew that if he could get this guy to swallow it he could get him to do what he did with me for twenty years, keep him from going to God and asking for Gods forgiveness.

So what do we do with this lie? What’s the answer? Do we crawl away into a corner and hope that God just doesn’t notice the hash we’ve made of things? I think Adam and Eve tried that when they believed the lies of the devil and they ate the fruit of that one tree, just that one that God said don’t eat from this one.

Their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Have you ever considered how patently ridiculous it is to try and hide from God? It’s totally crazy and yet we all do it when we swallow the devil’s lies. Why did they hide? Because they were ashamed, because they instantly knew they’d disobeyed God. There was nothing magical in the fruit that they ate, no drugs or hallucinogens, it was just ordinary fruit.

They’re immediate reaction like the young man, like me, like you, was to run and hide. Friend what’s the answer? The answer is knowing the truth, the answer is that the grace of God through Jesus Christ is totally, totally for you and for me. It’s totally bullet proof, have a listen, Romans chapter 5 beginning at verse 1;

Therefore since we now have a complete right standing with God through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we’ve obtained access to this grace in which we now stand and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

While we were still weak just at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. I mean rarely will anyone die for a good person, maybe for a good person someone might actually dare to die but God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

How much more surely then now that we’ve been justified by the blood of Jesus, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God? For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely having been reconciled we’re going to be saved by his life.

What’s all that saying? This, because Jesus died on that cross to pay for our sins, every sin, every mistake, every turning of our backs on God, large, small, past, present, future, Jesus paid for each one by dying on that cross so the requirements of the inheritantly just nature of God would be met because of that.

When we put our trust in Jesus and what He’s done for us on that cross we are forgiven by God, freely, it’s called grace. If we could somehow work our way into a right standing with God through our own strength Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on that cross but we can’t, that’s why Jesus died, that’s why Gods forgiveness is by grace. And so when we put our trust in Jesus instead of crawling away and hiding in the corner we can boast in what Jesus did for us.

When was the last time you fell for the devil’s age old lie that you’re not worthy of God? Therefore by clear implication you never can be. Well now that you’ve heard the truth perhaps again, perhaps for the first time and knowing that truth you are totally, completely set free from any condemnation.

Let me finish up with this story. Martin Luther once had a dream in which he stood on the day of judgement before God. Satan was there to accuse him and when the books were opened Satan pointed transgression after transgression of which Luther was guilty. Luther’s heart sank but then he remembered the Cross and turning upon the devil he said, ‘There is one entry which thou hast not made, Satan.’ ‘What’s that?’ asked the devil. ‘It is this’, answered Luther, ‘that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ (1 John chapter 1, verse 7)

My friend that’s the truth, that’s the God honest truth and so the next time the devil comes after you with a pick axe to tell you that you’re not worthy the answer is, ‘Of course I’m not, but the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, has cleansed me from all sin’. And now, now that you know the truth may you be set free from this lie.