Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-16-23

There is an old description of untruths or falsehoods – “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It is, of course, more of an accusation against statisticians than everyday, garden-variety liars; and my own assessments of that profession is: “Statistics don’t lie, but statisticians do.”

We see this proven most glaringly in politics and public-opinion polling, but it is everywhere, in every sphere, used at every possible opportunity. I will assert that 78 percent of people agree with me.

Having disposed of that, we are left with lies, a subject or at least a practice with which most of us are familiar. But I rather mean for us to think about “damned” lies, and I hope nobody is offended by the word, but it is chosen and should be considered carefully.

To employ the “D” word, as earlier generations liked to politely clothe it, involves one of the most serious matters, with the most serious consequences, of all things. There is a heaven and there is a hell, even if contemporary society denies the existence of both. Even modern – or I should say post-modern – churches tend to deny hell; at the least we can note that many denominations avoid the subject of hell; many churches ignore the consequences of hell; many preachers deny the existence of hell.

And when the Bible, when Jesus Himself, spoke of hell and its reality, the contemporary world in its denials, finds it easy, or in fact, logically incumbent, to dismiss heaven – the desire for heaven, the reality of heaven, the existence of heaven. Besides, contemporary life and paternalistic governments bring us heaven on earth, right? So what’s the need?

When people, much less denominations, say that they know more than the Bible, and better than Jesus, their “faith” is no faith at all.

But damnation is real. It is a severe caution, and it is a literal threat. To state the previous point another way, if there is no hell and no damnation, God had no reason to become incarnate, to have Jesus come to earth, suffer, and die. If there is no hell to be saved from, there is no heaven to hope for, and then God Almighty is flawed, and His Son Jesus was a fool – worse, a liar.

There’s that word – Liar. God cannot lie. It is not in His nature. But one of the Bible’s several names of Satan is “Liar.” Further, his job description, pictured most fully in the Book of Job but elsewhere too, is “Accuser.” We can say it is his job description.

Whether literally true – I believe it is true, but I mean whether every minute or daily or in a physical setting – we are not told and I do not care about such details. God knows all, but nevertheless it is written that Satan accuses the saints (us). As I said, God knows everything anyway, so there must be a point to our being reminded in the Word that our sins are seen in unseen places, known to God and the heavenly host and even the devil… perhaps as Satan’s final effort (his job description again, according to the Scripture) to “steal, kill, and destroy.”

Jesus told us, “If you believe in God, believe also in Me.” So as night follows day, what God said and Jesus taught about heaven and hell should keep us aware. Hell and damnation are not things casually to dismiss, and certainly not things to talk about lightly. “Damn this,” and “damned that,” and “Go to hell!” — when we say such things, we are playing with fire.

There is one more thought about lies, and the devil accusing us before the throne of God. Whether literal or Scripture’s way of helping us picture reality is not as important as this truth:

If Satan is a liar, I don’t care so much about him accusing us, lying about us, to God.

What we should be concerned about – tremble with fear, actually – is that the devil would tell the truth about us.

Why? If we are sinners, we have already condemned ourselves. If we have accepted Jesus, however, our robes are clean.

We must not be concerned with what the devil claims, but Whom our hearts have claimed.

And that’s no lie.

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Satan, the enemy of our souls, roams about and among us seeking whom to devour, as the Bible says. He might rant and roar against us before God… yet let us remember that softly and tenderly Jesus is calling.

Click: Softly and Tenderly