What I have here is the top ten
lies that people tell (according to the internet, so it must be true). The top
ten lies are as follows:
·
“I’m fine.”
·
“I
Have Read & Agreed to the Above Terms and Conditions.”
·
“Wow!
You Look Great In That Dress.” (Similar to: “No. You don’t look fat in that
dress.”)
·
“Don’t
Worry! It Will Be Okay!”
·
“I’m
almost there.”
·
“LOL”
·
“It’s
not mine.”
·
“No
problem.”
·
Last
one: “I understand.”
I’m tired of being lied to. How
about you? Are you? Because I just lied to you when I gave you my top ten
list with only nine lies. Yep. It’s easy to do but we all hate to be lied to. We
all know somebody that it seems like they would rather climb a tree to tell you
a lie than to stay on the ground and tell you the truth.
Satan most definitely falls into
that category. He is called the father of lies (John 8:44). He is good at it
and he should be. He has been doing it for a very long time. Satan is referred
to as the prince of this world in John 12:31 and he has
completely brainwashed this world into thinking that tearing down monuments
will solve racism.
He makes it sound like common
sense that we should abort the little unwanted fetuses before they become “real
babies”. He has lived up to his name as the father of lies by convincing
this world that what the Bible calls abomination
is just an alternative lifestyle. Satan has this world convinced that
when marriage gets really difficult, just leave. When life gets really
difficult, just end it. When you have to suffer the consequences for your
bad behavior, it’s somebody else’s fault.
All of this
has led to a world that is less happy, more stressed, more diseased, more
hateful, busier and less fulfilled than ever before and we can expect it to get
worse until Jesus comes again. Are you bummed out yet? Well, you
ought to be. Sin ought to bum you out. Sin ought to make you
mad. Sin is our worst enemy and as I have said before, it is the worst
thing in this world that can happen to us as believers.
Having sin
in our lives is the root cause of all our problems, even death. Romans
6:23 says that what we get for our sin, “the wages of sin” is
death. But for a Christian, even death is better than living in sin
because sin puts a barrier between us and God. Paul said to die is gain.
(Philippians 1:21) For a Christian, death means being with Jesus where there is
no more sin; no more abortion or racism or guilt or even crying. Did you
know that?
We joke
about this being “Cries Fellowship” because it happens so often around
here. Not me, of course. 😊 But for most people, it will be so nice not to
cry anymore, won’t it? Well, that time is coming soon. I promise
you. Let’s look at the passage that tells us that in Revelation 21:1-5.
We looked at it last week but there is so much to this passage that I want to
revisit it and really understand what we can about what Heaven will be like.
Last week
was supposed to be the end of our sermon series on the end times but there is
way too much about Heaven to only preach one sermon. I may do it again next week,
too. We have seen what happens at the Rapture and the difference in the
Rapture and the Second Coming. We have seen how wonderful the Millennium
is going to be and we talked last week about how, with God there, all our
wants, needs and desires will be fulfilled in Heaven.
But we are
so used to crying. We are so used to pain; some more than others, but
death, mourning, crying and pain are such a way of life for us in this
sin-infused world that it is hard to imagine living without it. We come
into this world with crying and pain and we usually leave with crying and
pain. I heard the joke about a man who said when it came his time to die,
he wanted to go like his father did, in peaceful sleep…not screaming and crying
like the passengers in his dad’s car.
Let’s turn
to Revelation 21:1-5 and see what it says about crying and pain.
Then
I saw "a new heaven and a new earth," for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw
the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared
as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud
voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the
people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself
will be with them and be their God. 4'He will wipe every tear from
their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the
old order of things has passed away." 5He who was seated on the
throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write
this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
A preacher
was preaching one day and he asked the congregation if they were ready to go to
Heaven. Everybody in the place raised their hands except one little
boy. The preacher asked, “Son, don’t you want to go to Heaven?”
The boy said, “Sure. Someday. But I thought you was getting up a
load to go now.” That’s an old joke.
Well, I’m
ready to go now. I’m tired of this nasty old world with its old
jokes. I’m tired of the death, mourning, crying and pain. I want to
hear some new jokes. I want to hear laughter. I want to hear
singing and whistling and humming. But in this life and in this world it
seems like what we usually hear is griping and complaining and passing blame
and making excuses. Then that all leads to crying and pain, doesn’t it?
Look at verse
4 again. 4'He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of
things has passed away." I looked up all those words – death,
mourning, crying and pain – in my commentaries just to make sure I understood
what was being said. I’m happy to report that they mean just what you
think they mean. There will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain
because there is no reason for them.
In this
life, what are some of the causes of crying and pain? You don’t have to
mention what you are going through or what you are experiencing right now but,
maybe, what you have seen other people cry about. We cry about poor
decisions we or others have made. We cry about the guilt that comes from
those decisions. We cry when we see others make the same decisions
because we love them and don’t want them to have to go through what we have
gone through. I think that’s why our children make us cry so much.
We cry when
things are hard or they don’t go our way. We cry when people disappoint
us. We cry when we disappoint other people. We cry when we
disappoint God. Of course, we cry when death comes to a loved one because
we will miss them when they are gone. We cry when we see death coming for
us because we fear the unknown.
All of
those are perfectly good reasons to cry but do you know why we have to go
through that stuff? Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t wave His hand and
make this life easier for us, without all this crying and pain and death?
Well…it used to be that way, at least for a little while.
Turn to Genesis
chapter 3. I want you to see for yourselves why we have to go through
all of this. It’s important. Turn to the first book of the Bible, chapter
3 and verses 17-19 and verse 23. "Cursed is the
ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the
days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your
brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you
were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." 23So
the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which
he had been taken.
This all
happened as the consequence of sin and there are still consequences of sin and
the consequences rarely affect only the sinner. There will always be
consequences for disobedience, just like there are benefits of obedience but
with disobedience the consequences affect, not just us, but all those around us
that we love the most.
In Genesis
3, God says there is now a curse on the ground. This represents every
aspect of their lives. That’s all they knew. It’s how they
survived. Now, everything for them and for every generation since has
been cursed by sin. Oh, it’s easy to get all upset at Adam and Eve for
messing it all up for us, right? But we do the same thing today and reap
the same consequences, don’t we? Sin curses everything.
I heard a woman
speaking at a women’s rally one time. She said, "Where would
man be today if it were not for woman?" From the back of the room came
a voice, "We'd be in the Garden of Eden, eating strawberries."
That may be funny to some of us but it’s not true. We all mess up and we
all have to suffer the consequences and the consequences are death, mourning,
crying and pain. That’s the curse of sin.
That’s also what is going to
make Heaven so wonderful. No more sin. Now, somebody asked a great
question one time. Since Satan was originally an angel in Heaven and he sinned,
won’t we be tempted to sin in Heaven? That’s a great question but the
answer is “no”.
First, we know there won’t be
sin in Heaven because the Bible says so. At the end of this chapter, in verse
27, it says that nothing impure will ever enter into Heaven,
nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful. In chapter 22,
verse 3: 3” No longer will there be any curse.” No
more curse means no more sin.
But we also
read in Matthew 13:41 that “The Son of Man will send out his angels,
and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do
evil.” We will still have free will but there will be nothing there
that even would cause us to sin. We will have everything we could ever
want, need or desire because as we read last week, God Himself will live with
us. He will meet and exceed all desires and for a lot of us, our biggest
desire right now is for there to not be any more death or mourning or crying
or pain.
I want you
to see, though, that death, mourning, crying and pain…is the old order of
things. Look at verse 4 again. 4'He will wipe
every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying
or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Then look
at verse 5. 5He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
Everything
new! No more sin. No more curse. No more temptation or regret
or guilt or shame. No more having to ask for forgiveness. Now, that
sounds pretty heavenly to me right there! I read about a woman who was a
well-known secular humanist, which, from what I understand is just a smart
atheist. While on her death bed, she told a Christian friend, “What I envy most about
you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me."
The psychologist, Sigmund
Freud, said that the main source of all humanity’s woes are feelings of
guilt. I heard another psychologist say that ¾ of all mental patients would be
cured if they believed they were forgiven. No more sin. No more
curse. No more need for forgiveness.
Look, I am just as fascinated as
you are about what Heaven is going to be like and if all dogs go there and what
we are going to do and I can’t wait to see Aunt Bessie just like you. But
just knowing that I will never again disappoint my Savior; never again will I
have to drag myself into His holy throne room in prayer with my head down and
my tail between my legs and cry out in pain for forgiveness – that’s what I
want Heaven to be like and I know you do too if you are a true believer.
I’m not worried about what my
mansion is going to be like or how my glorified body is going to work. I
trust Him with those details. He said He is going to prepare a place for
me and so I trust that He knows what paint color schemes I like best and what I
like to eat and what I like to do. I’m glad God has shared some of what
that will be like, but if there is no more death, mourning, crying or pain,
count me in. That will be great but I just want to be with and please my
Savior, Jesus Christ.
I have one more passage I want
you to turn to before we close. In the Gospel of John, chapter 20,
Jesus has been crucified and put in the tomb. His disciples are beyond
crushed. Everything they had believed, trusted, wanted and needed was
dead behind a rock in a graveyard. They had no plan for the future.
They had no hope for this life or the next if Jesus was dead.
They buried Him on Friday.
Saturday was the Sabbath and so first thing Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene went
to the graveyard to pay her respects. Can you imagine the pain that must
have felt like a lung being pulled out when she got to the tomb and saw that
His body was gone? This is just too much!
Now she’s just bawling.
It’s an ugly cry full of overwhelming pain. Let’s pick it up in John
20:10-18. 10Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. 11Now
Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the
tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had
been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13They asked her,
"Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my LORD
away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14At
this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize
that it was Jesus. 15He asked her, "Woman,
why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you
have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get
him." 16Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in
Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means "Teacher"). 17Jesus
said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not
yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am
ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" 18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with
the news: "I have seen the LORD!"
She’s not
crying now, is she? Everything is okay now. “I have seen the
LORD!” The presence of the Lord was enough; more than enough.
For Mary, there was no more mourning or crying or pain because she had seen the
Lord. Don’t you know that even when that day came, whenever it was, that
Mary Magdalene’s earthly body gave out and she breathed her last that she could
go in great peace, having seen, been with, worshipped and believed Jesus? She
had seen with her own earthly eyes the power Jesus had to overcome death and if
death is overcome then so is the mourning, crying and pain of sin for eternity.
"Where,
O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15)
Jesus has overcome death, sin,
Satan and this world and that ought to be a great encouragement to all of
us. This life is hard but it’s short and the thought of spending eternity
in Heaven with Him and without all the pain of this world should make us burn
with desire to tell somebody else what little or much we know about it.
The thought of sin being the
root cause of all our crying and pain ought to make us hate sin and Satan even
more. While there will always be something to mourn, cry or hurt over in
this life, we can have forgiveness in this life and that brings peace. It
brings peace with God and when we have peace with God, we can have peace with
men. Knowing that God is in control and that he loves us and forgives us
brings peace and joy even in the painful times.
Add to that the knowledge that
we have that at the end of this short life we will see Jesus if we are true
believers and we can have peace that passes all understanding. (Philippians
4:7) How does that sound today? If you don’t have that all you have to do
is believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that nobody gets
to the Father but through Him. (John 14:6) Repent of your sins and ask God for
forgiveness and He will be faithful to forgive and to cleanse you from all
unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) Don’t wait. Do it today.
Prayer / Invitation
Adrian Rogers is one of my
favorite preachers. He went to Heaven several years ago but in a book he
wrote, he mentioned that he had a son named Phillip who passed away. He
didn’t say how, just that it was a great tragedy. Before that, he had
regularly gone to the hospital to visit sick folks and to witness to them and
in his rounds, he said he met a very cynical old man and had tried several
times to lead him to Christ.
After his son’s death, Dr.
Rogers went back to the hospital to visit that man and somehow the man had
found out about his son. “What are you doing here?” the old man
asked.
“I came to see you” Rogers replied.
“Are you still serving God after
what he did to you?”
“I’m not bitter at God” he said. “I’m
bitter at Satan. He has a greater enemy in me today than ever before
because I know that behind all the sickness, sorrow, pain, suffering and death
is sin.”
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