Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. … he is a liar and the father of lies.

The Gospel of John, Chapter 8, verse 44, New Living Translation

VK: Hi! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re glad to be with you today on Anchored by Truth. This is our final episode in this series that we have called “The Seriousness of Sin.” During this series we talked about the consequences of sin both in this world and in eternity to come. We discussed the reality and nature of hell. And we spent a few episodes talking about how seriously God treats sin. If you want an easy-to-see example of how seriously God treats sin you only have to realize that man lost paradise and death entered creation all because of a single sin in the Garden of Eden. And an even more graphic example of sin’s seriousness is that God’s only Son had to die on the cross to atone for sin’s consequences. To help us wrap up this series we have RD Fierro in the studio today. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, in our last episode we talked about sin being out-of-bounds. Can you briefly summarize why that was important?

RD: Doug Apple who is the manager of the WAVE 94 radio station in Tallahassee once said to me that “[God] set up boundaries for us, and things outside the boundaries are called sin... and things outside the boundaries don't work right. If we are paying attention … we can see that things outside the boundaries are problematic.” I think Doug is absolutely right and so as a partial summary to this series I wanted for the listeners to begin thinking about areas in their lives where they may be “beyond the boundaries.” As Doug noted, anything beyond the boundaries God has set for us is going to cause problems. The whole point of this seriousness of sin series is to help people start thinking about whether they have a Biblically based understanding of what sin is and whether they are joining the broader society in treating sin lightly or even flippantly.

VK: Because if they are treating sin lightly or flippantly they are going to have problems. Sin is insidious. At first sinful activities may seem fun or pleasurable. Especially to young people it may seem like we make too big a deal out of sin. We hear people say things like “what’s the harm” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” But what the Bible clearly shows us is that sin always causes harm. It may cause little initially but the harm will build over time. And all too often by the time the sinner realizes the gravity of what they have been doing it is too late. But by developing a Biblical understanding of sin we can avoid the proliferation of sin in our own lives and the harm that sin will produce.

RD: Yes. So, in our last episode we talked about how we can know that we are approaching or going beyond the boundaries God has set for us.

VK: And anyone who missed that episode or any episode of Anchored by Truth can go to our website, crystalseabooks.com, and listen to it.

RD: Right. So, last time we talked about the fact that God’s boundaries are meant to keep us safe while we are passing through this world. We don’t want to sojourn with sin the way Abraham’s nephew, Lot, did when he went to live in the city of Sodom.

VK: Sojourning with sin is not just unwise. It can pose mortal danger just as it did for the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.

RD: Right. If Lot had stayed out of Sodom he wouldn’t have lost his wealth, his family, and his dignity. Lot sojourned with sin and paid the price. God rescued Lot but it would have been so much better for him and his family if he had not. Now we don’t know the specific reason Lot decided to abandon his former life as a very successful shepherd but we do know Lot’s life is one more sad example of what happens when we let the lust of our eyes entice us to go beyond God’s boundaries.

VK: And that’s something that has been happening ever since Satan first tempted Eve in the garden. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 6 says, “The woman saw how beautiful the tree was and how good its fruit would be to eat, and she thought how wonderful it would be to become wise. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, and he also ate it.” Eve’s surrender to temptation began with her eyes. The same thing was true of Lot. Genesis, chapter 13, verse 10 says, “Lot looked around and saw that the whole Jordan Valley, all the way to Zoar, had plenty of water, like the Garden of the LORD or like the land of Egypt.” Lot liked how the Jordan valley looked. So, he left his uncle and the mountains and descended into sin’s valley where he lost everything. Those verses are from the Good News Translation.

RD: Right. Both Lot and Eve got into trouble, at least in part, because they were tempted by beauty. In Eve’s case it was the beauty of the tree. In Lot’s case it was the beauty of the valley. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to beauty. But we must always check to be sure that beauty we are seeking is the beauty that arises from godly things and not the lust that arises from our eyes or our pride.

VK: We hear about the role that beauty can play in leading people into temptation and ultimate destruction in two of the best known passages from the Old Testament about the city of Tyre [TIRE]. Tyre was a very wealthy, prosperous city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea during Biblical times. It amassed huge wealth from trading because of its powerful navy and coastal location. The prophet Ezekiel gave several prophecies about the upcoming destruction of Tyre. In chapter 27, verses 2 and 3, of his book Ezekiel said, “Mortal man, sing a funeral song for Tyre, that city which stands at the edge of the sea and does business with the people living on every seacoast. Tell her what the Sovereign LORD is saying: ‘Tyre, you boasted of your perfect beauty.’” Then in chapter 28 verses 12 through 15 Ezekiel reports God talking to the king of Tyre. God said, “You were once an example of perfection. How wise and handsome you were! You lived in Eden, the garden of God, and wore gems of every kind: rubies and diamonds; topaz, beryl, carnelian, and jasper; sapphires, emeralds, and garnets. You had ornaments of gold. They were made for you on the day you were created. … You lived on my holy mountain and walked among sparkling gems. Your conduct was perfect from the day you were created until you began to do evil.” That’s also from the Good News Translation.

RD: Some Bible commentators think that God addressing the king of Tyre in chapter 28 is actually God speaking to Satan using the king as a human representative for Satan, but there is not a consensus among the scholarly community on that. But regardless of whether God is addressing Satan or just a puffed-up earthly king we can see that beauty, in and of itself, is not a sign that danger may not be just around the corner. We must be alert to the possibility that evil is using visual beauty as a disguise.

VK: And that is one thing that you said you wanted to talk about as we wrap up this series. There are often obvious warning signs that sin is, as God told Cain in Genesis, chapter 4, verse 7, “crouching at your door.” But sin does always crouch at the door in a monster outfit. Here’s what the Apostle Paul had to say when he was warning the church in Corinth about the dangers of false teachers. “Those men are not true apostles—they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ. Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light! So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.”

RD: Right. Sin is dangerous because it can masquerade so effectively.

VK: If sin can masquerade as beauty or light, then how do we know to be on guard to avoid it?

RD: By following Jesus’ example when He was tempted by Satan and not Eve’s.

VK: Jesus quoted scripture to Satan and continued to quote scripture as the temptations continued. Eve initially repeated God’s word to Satan but she quickly abandoned God’s instructions in favor of her own estimation. Rather than simply sticking with the simple instruction she had been given about the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – “don’t eat” – she substituted her own judgment. The fruit looked good. She wanted to be wise. She wanted to be like God. I see your point. Jesus, even though he was the Son of God, just returned to God’s word every time. Yikes. This is scary.

RD: And it should be. Sin can masquerade as beauty and light – because the original sinner can put on any guise that suits him. He has been doing so from the beginning. That’s what we heard about in our opening scripture. Jesus told his disciples that “[Satan] was a murderer from the beginning. He … always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. … he is a liar and the father of lies.” Note the Jesus said Satan was a murderer from the beginning and he was the father of lies. We sometimes think that the first sinners were Adam and Eve, but they weren’t.

VK: I see what you’re saying. Adam and Eve weren’t the first sinners. The very first sinner was Satan.

RD: Yes. And we can learn a lot about the dangers of sin and how to combat it by looking at what the Bible has to say about Satan. Satan was the original sinner, the father of lies and murder. We hear Satan lying to Eve in the opening chapters of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. And we hear Satan deceiving the world through the anti-Christ, Beast, and false prophet in the last book of the Bible, Revelation.

VK: You know that’s something you hardly ever think about. The only Person, the only One who transcends the entire period of the Bible’s record is God. God is mentioned in the very first verse of the Bible and the last verse of the Bible and the last 3 verses of the Bible in Revelation all mention Jesus. God begins the Bible and ends the Bible which is entirely appropriate. It is His book. But, interestingly Satan is also mentioned in the first book of the Bible and in the last. Satan also makes lots of appearances along the way including at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. So, we know that Satan, like all those of the angelic order, do not suffer death.

RD: Yes. And during all that long period there is no evidence found anywhere in the Bible that Satan ever turned away from his sinning ways or repented of his wickedness and evil. That gives us all something to think about.

VK: Such as?

RD: Well, even up to this point Satan has existed for over 6,000 years. And while Satan is neither omni-present nor omniscient during those 6,000 plus years he has seen a lot. Satan has seen God destroy human sinners – a lot of them. Satan observed Jesus’ earthly ministry. He saw Jesus cast demons out of people with merely a word. And Satan knows the entire Bible cover to cover, every word. Satan knows the book of Revelation, which forecasts his ultimate fate, better than any person ever could. But again, despite all of what he has seen and what he knows we have no evidence that Satan has ever sought forgiveness or redemption from God. To the contrary, if those who view Revelation as describing a future great conflict are correct, Satan and his demonic followers just get worse through time.

VK: I know where you’re going. It is a cardinal belief among the modern world that if we could just give people more information, more education they would all begin to behave more virtuously, more nobly, more kindly. We hear over and over today that human beings aren’t evil, just misinformed. But as we look at the career of an intelligent being that has spanned thousands of years that belief is called into question. Now, I’m sure that there are people today who would say that using Satan as an example of how humans behave isn’t fair. We aren’t demons or angels.

RD: I’m sure they would. And it is true that we are not members of the angelic order. But we are intelligent, moral agents, with free wills as the angels are. But there is an important difference between us and the angels. After Satan and the demons sinned there is no record in the Bible that they were provided a means of redemption. By contrast after Adam and Eve sinned God immediately instituted a plan to redeem anyone who would begin to place their trust in God for redemption from their sins and not place their trust in themselves. It’s a mystery that I call “two rebellions, one redemption.”

VK: The Bible records two rebellions against God – the angelic rebellion and the human rebellion. But the Bible records only one redemption. God made the plans and provisions to redeem a portion of the rebellious humans but not the rebellious angels.

RD: And I think we can learn a lot from thinking about this situation. And one thing we learn is that there is a strong inclination to continue in sin once that path is started. Satan and his demonic followers apparently became irretrievably locked into their rebellion once they started. And we find that same characteristic true of so many people in the Bible.

VK: We think of the Pharaoh that Moses confronted. Pharaoh and his army were ultimately destroyed when they tried to cross the Red Sea after God had parted it for the fleeing Hebrews. But they were chasing the Hebrews after they had seen God perform a series of 10 miracles including the death of the first-born of all the Egyptians. And we can think of the Hebrews in the desert who even though they had seen the miracles and the destruction of the Egyptian army decided to rebel against Moses’ leadership. We hear about this incident in chapter 16 of the book of Numbers in verses 25 and 26. “Then Moses, accompanied by the leaders of Israel, went to Dathan [DAY-THUN] and Abiram [AH-BEE-RAM]. He said to the people, “Get away from the tents of these wicked men and don't touch anything that belongs to them. Otherwise, you will be wiped out with them for all their sins.” And we can think of the destruction of the 10 northern tribes of Israel when they fell into idolatry and refused to give it up.

RD: Exactly. In fact, when we go through the Bible we find that there is one and only one thing that can be counted on to induce people to give up their sin: the word of God. For instance, one of the most wicked kings in Judah’s history was Manasseh.

VK: We hear a part of his story in 2 Chronicles, chapter 33, verses 9 through 13. “Manasseh [MAH-NA-SUH – just like Joe’s name] led the people of Judah to commit even greater sins than those committed by the nations whom the LORD had driven out of the land as his people advanced. Although the LORD warned Manasseh and his people, they refused to listen. So the LORD let the commanders of the Assyrian army invade Judah. They captured Manasseh, …, put him in chains, and took him to Babylon. In his suffering he became humble, turned to the LORD his God, and begged him for help. God accepted Manasseh's prayer and answered it by letting him go back to Jerusalem and rule again. This convinced Manasseh that the LORD was God.” That’s the Good News Translation.

RD: Manasseh repented of his sins when he remembered God’s word. And, of course, the most spectacular example of a sinner giving up his sin is when the Apostle Paul, when he was still called Saul, heard Jesus on the road to Damascus. Time and time again in the Bible we find out that it is God’s word that brings about a change in heart. Even in the classic story of the Prodigal Son the son only repents and returns home after he thinks about his father. So, I think when you put all this together we find out that only God and his word can restrain the growth of sin and return sinners to the path of righteousness.

VK: And God opened this path to human sinners by being willing to assume a human nature and then dying a terrible death on the cross. The Bible tells us that God made man in His own image. And after man sinned God took on, as the Bible says in Romans, chapter 8, verse 3, “the likeness of sinful flesh” to permit man’s redemption. This is a very powerful line of thinking. People on their own are going to be defeated by sin. Sin is so serious that people can’t successfully resist it. It takes the power and love of God to limit the growth of sin and to overcome its effects. But the good news is that God can and does overcome sin. The Apostle John said in 1 John, chapter 5, verse 4, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” We can overcome sin but we must emphasize that we can only do so through the power of God and His word.

RD: Sin is serious because it is contrary to God’s plans, commandments, and nature. So, how seriously we view sin is directly related to how seriously we take God. When we sin, when Satan sinned, we were saying to God that we know better than Him. That’s an unbelievably arrogant and foolish statement. Who can know more than the omniscient? Who can give advice to the One who gives the power to think in the first place? Who can instruct the Perfect Being that designed all of creation? These questions answer themselves. Yet, Satan, Adam, Eve, and all of Eve’s descendants have answered them by saying “we can.”

VK: People throughout history have substituted their judgment for God’s. But it never improves things when the finite tries to shove the infinite aside or replace His perfection with our imperfections. Satan was one of the most glorious beings ever created but he sacrificed his exalted status by seeking a status that belongs only to God almighty. While we don’t know for sure how Satan attempted to do that, we know that that kind of an attempt would never succeed. God is not only all-knowing He is also all-powerful.

RD: And that’s the point. We learn from the first sinner’s failure to achieve his plans that no plan formed against the Almighty will ever succeed. It could never succeed. But we also know from the history of Satan contained in sacred scripture that Satan never learned anything from his failure. Instead, all scripture tells us is that he digs his heels in further in what will be a futile attempt to resist the irresistible. The question is whether we will learn from the history of Satan, Pharaoh, and Manasseh. When Satan and the demons fell they locked themselves into eternal enmity against God. Pharaoh had the opportunity to repent but refused despite God sending some of the clearest warnings ever give to anyone. He died and tens or hundreds of thousands of his people died with him and because of him. Manasseh was a desperately wicked king but he was brought so low as to be imprisoned in a foreign land he remembered God’s word that God is merciful to those who repent. He humbled himself and repented and God restored him back to his land.

VK: What we all need to learn is that sin is serious, deadly serious. But we must also remember that deliverance from sin and its consequences is possible. But that deliverance cannot arise from purely human means. We need God’s word, God’s Spirit, and God’s power to come into our lives. We need to humble ourselves and repent just as Manasseh did. One of the most comforting lines in all of scripture is 1 John, chapter 1, verse 9. “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” That’s from the New Living Translation.

RD: Sin is serious because it alienates people from God. God never intended that. God has given us the Bible, his special revelation, so that we can understand both sides of the equation. As with the case of the Prodigal Son sin moves us away from God but God is always ready to forgive us and restore us when we realize that a life apart from God is a life in the pig pen of sin. No matter how much money we make, how many cars we have, or how many creature comforts we enjoy a life apart from God will never be fulfilling and whole. And a life of sin which remains without confession or repentance will only earn us a place in the lake of fire alongside the original sinner Satan. Sin is serious and deadly but God, through Jesus’ sacrifice, has made restoration available. If ignore that restoration then like Adam and Eve the only one responsible for our exile from a heavenly Eden will be ourselves.

VK: God created a creation that was without sin but he also gave free will to angels and men. Satan and his demons abused their free will and were ejected from heaven. Satan then brought his spirit of sin to the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve. All the holy angels were watching. Would Adam and Eve listen to God’s clear command or follow Satan’s serpentine suggestion to eat forbidden fruit? The choice was Adam and Eve’s. Sadly, for them and us, they ate and brought death, disorder, and disaster to a creation that had been “very good.” But man’s demise was never God’s plan and God immediately began a plan of redemption. That plan was the costliest possible to God. He had to sacrifice His only Son to make redemption possible. But a loving and merciful God made that sacrifice. If we ignore the benefits of that sacrifice we prove that we are more interested in following Satan than Jesus. That’s just plain crazy. We pray all our listeners will choose Jesus and life. This sounds like a great time to pray. It seems appropriate today to pray for the restoration of the worship of the One True God who is both the architect and builder of the temple of our salvation. Let us hasten into the temple and pray never to leave.

---- PRAYER FOR RESTORATION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE GOD (MARCUS)

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Opening Bible Quote from the New Living Translation)

The Gospel of John, Chapter 8, verse 44, New Living Translation