THE GREATEST LIE
DR. JIM DIXON
FEBRUARY 20, 1994
ROMANS 1:16-25
In 1883, Carlo Collodi, whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini, wrote a story called The Adventures of Pinocchio. And of course, Pinocchio was a wooden puppet whose nose grew every time he told a lie, and it became quite a problem. The nose became so massive that Pinocchio couldn’t move from room to room. His nose grew so large, he couldn’t get through the door. And of course, the greater the lie, the greater the problem.
Now, this morning, I want us to focus on the greatest lie of all and the problems, some of the problems, that that lie has brought to our nation and world. The Bible tells us that Satan is the father of lies, and he has sold a lie to America, and we have bought it. He has sold the same lie to the world. The lie is this: Mankind is basically good. That’s the lie. It’s the greatest lie of all. It is contrary to the explicit teaching of holy scripture, for the Bible says that though we were created in the image and likeness of God, we are tragically fallen and we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And there is none righteous, no, not one. And in the presence of a holy God, all of our righteousness is like filthy rags. That’s what the Bible says. But the lie is this: Mankind is basically good. And from that lie, our nation is experiencing a number of problems.
First of all, the lie has spawned the victimization of America. We live in a nation of victims. I’m sure that some of you have heard of Dan White. Dan White was the superintendent of the city of San Francisco a few years ago, an elected official. But he decided to resign. He decided to quit, and the mayor of the city of San Francisco had to appoint a replacement. But then Dan White did a strange thing. He decided that he wanted his job back, and so he went to the mayor and he asked to be reappointed as supervisor of the city of San Francisco. And the mayor said, “Can’t do it.” The mayor said, “I’ve already appointed a replacement. I have appointed a man named Harvey Milk.”
Well, Dan White was crushed, and he was also very angry. And ultimately in his anger, he wound up shooting George Mosconi, the mayor of the city of San Francisco, and he also wound up shooting Harvey Milk, his replacement as supervisor of the city of San Francisco. And you probably read about it in the newspapers. Well, the most amazing thing of all took place at the trial where Dan White’s attorney said that Dan White was basically a very good man, basically a very good man. And he said, “Dan White is not the villain here.” He said, “the real villain is junk food.” That’s what he said. And that was his defense. He said the real villain was Hostess Twinkies. He said that Hostess Twinkies had brought about a chemical imbalance in the body of Dan White and that Dan White, even though he was basically a really good man, was a victim of chemical imbalances.
Now, that ludicrous event is symptomatic of what is happening in our culture and time. We live in a country where people are always victims and never villains. We live in a country where people are always deprived and never depraved. And of course, it all goes back to Eden as described in Genesis chapter 3, where God came to Adam and said, “What have you done?” And Adam said, “The woman whom thou gave us to be with me, she gave me of its fruit, and I did eat.” Adam said, “I’m basically a good guy. I’m just a victim of the woman.” That’s what he said. And then God said to Eve, “What have you done?” And Eve said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. I’m basically a good person. I’m just a victim of the serpent.” You see, it all goes back to the lie that sin is not a problem. We’re not culpable, we’re not responsible. We’re just victims. We’re basically good. It all goes back to the lie.
Of course, now we live in a country where millions of people are alcoholics, but it’s not their fault. They’re just victims, victims of chemical predispositions, victims of chemical imbalances, victims of alcohol itself. We live in a country where many people are sexually promiscuous, but it’s not their fault. They’re just victims of addictive disorders beyond their control. They’re just victims of an upbringing, of a home life where they didn’t get enough love. Just victims. We live in a country where, tragically, millions of people live in poverty in inner cities across America. And more tragically, some of them have joined gangs and some of them have participated in horrible violence, but it’s not their fault. They’re basically good. They’re just victims, victims of broken homes, victims of poverty itself, victims of white suburban oppression. And of course, that’s the thing about victimization. There’s some truth to it. There’s always some truth to it.
See, when Adam said, “The woman whom thou gave us to be with me, she gave me of its fruit, and I did eat,” that was true. And when Eve said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat,” that was true. There’s always some truth to victimization. And it is true, I think, that white suburban America is guilty of oppression. Our innocent bystander status is not really so innocent. It is true that broken homes bring suffering and hardship. And it is true that many people suffer from chemical predispositions and chemical imbalances. You see, there’s some truth to victimization. But the problem is it destroys a nation. A philosophy of victimization just destroys a culture. People no longer take sin seriously, and we deny our culpability, we deny our responsibility, and ultimately, it all enables the lie that we are basically and intrinsically good.
Another problem that has come to our nation and our world through this great lie is that it has undermined parenting, public education, and even the criminal justice system. You see, it was 1954 when William Golding wrote a book called Lord of the Flies. That book was made into an award-winning Hollywood movie. The book told the story of children who were stranded on an island and suddenly they were without law. Suddenly they were without supervision. Suddenly they were without standard. Suddenly they were without civilization. And gradually, gradually, they began to slide into depravity, and they began to do horrible things that in their prior life they never would’ve imagined possible.
The book became highly controversial, and it was debated by child psychologists all over the world and it was debated by social and criminal psychologists as well. But at bottom, it posed the philosophical, theological question, “What is the nature of man?” Is man basically good or is man basically evil? Children, if left to themselves, will they grow flowers and become a beautiful garden? Or if left to themselves, will they just grow weeds? We live in a culture where our public educational system is risking everything on the presupposition that they’re going to grow flowers and a beautiful garden. Many parents are too. Children raising children.
Of course, this past week, the House Education Committee of the state of Colorado has had an intense discussion, and perhaps you’ve read about it in the newspapers. The discussion has centered on the subject of corporal punishment. Should there be corporal punishment in the public schools? There are 63 counties in the state of Colorado. At one time, all of those counties allowed corporal punishment. It was legal. Of course, corporal punishment refers primarily to spanking, hopefully properly administered with just cause.
Today, only 29 counties in the state of Colorado allow corporal punishment out of those 63 counties, and most of those 29 counties are rural. They’re rural counties away from the cities where the people are more conservative. And this has bothered liberal educators who have felt like those 29 counties are never going to vote correctly. They’re never going to get rid of corporal punishment. So we need to have a state law that makes corporal punishment illegal in Colorado because our students are the only class of citizens that can be legally assaulted. And so they’ve wanted to get rid of corporal punishment. The House Education Committee this week by a 6-to-5 vote decided to continue to allow corporal punishment in those 29 counties. But it’s only a matter of time. You see, it’s only a matter of time and corporal punishment will not be allowed anywhere.
Now, I know from letters that I have received from many of you that many of you do not believe in corporal punishment. Biblically, I can’t agree with you, but it seems to me, even if you don’t believe in corporal punishment, you would have to admit this. You would have to admit that in the last 40 years, there has been a movement towards laxity in discipline in the context of the home and in the context of public education. There’s been a movement towards laxity. And you see, behind that movement is the lie behind that that man is basically good. The lie that children, if left to themselves, grow flowers, the delusion that we don’t need to pull weeds. It’s a lie. And this lie has impacted even our criminal justice system where the assumption is made that hardened criminals, no matter how violent, are basically good. If we can just give them enough light, that goodness will come out.
But our Lord Jesus Christ said, “This is the judgment: Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light.” But you see, we live in a world that doesn’t take sin seriously, and the tragedy is because of the lie the world is following.
Well, there’s a third problem that has arisen from this lie, and I wanted to focus more extensively on this. The third problem is that the lie has thwarted the progress of the gospel and made revival almost impossible in our time. The lie has thwarted the progress of the gospel. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” But what if there is no sin? What if we don’t need a savior? What if we’re all basically good? And if the lie is bought, the need for a savior becomes moot, the fact that Jesus is Savior, and people continue in their sin.
In recent times, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject of revivals through history. I’ve been studying some of the great awakenings all over the world at various times in history. In every case where there was revival, in every case, when there was a great awakening, a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, people began to cry. In every case, revival and awakening began with tears, with men and women weeping at their own sin. Do you realize what a miracle that would be? I don’t know how you feel. I know how I feel. I rarely weep at sin. I know I’m a sinner and I thank God I have a Savior. And yet I rarely weep at my own sin and how we need revival.
Even in the evangelical community I think we have in part bought the lie. You see, I think as evangelicals we are somewhat like the Pharisees, because we have kind of made a list of bad things to avoid. We think if we can avoid these bad things that we are pretty good. We think that if we can just avoid these bad things, we’re okay. And of course, most of those bad things are bad and should be avoided. We tend to include the 10 commandments in the list of bad things. Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery. And we labor under the illusion that if we just avoid these things, we’re okay. But I don’t think we understand the biblical description of goodness and the nature of our own depravity and our desperate need for a savior. I don’t think we have enough tears.
This last Monday, I was going through the New Testament, going through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I was just seeking to identify every passage where Jesus spoke about wealth and poverty. I was amazed. It took me three hours to itemize the passages. Jesus spoke so frequently on the subject of wealth and poverty, and so often in the teachings of our Lord goodness was associated with demonstrative love, with compassion, with mercy, and with social justice. Not simply with this list of bad things to avoid, but the positive attributes of compassion and mercy and love and social justice.
I want to tell you a little parable that Jesus told. It is rarely preached on. It’s from Luke 16. It’s the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Sometimes the rich man is called “Devas,” which is simply the Roman word or the Latin word rich means rich man. And this rich man, Jesus tells us, lived in a nice house, really a mansion. And Jesus says nothing negative about the rich man. I mean, he didn’t get his money crookedly. He was not a criminal. And he was, I believe, by the world’s standards, basically good. Jesus says nothing negative about him. All Jesus tells us about him is that he was very rich and very happy. But you see, the problem was there was this man, Lazarus, who lived at the rich man’s very gates, who lived at the gates of the rich man’s palace. And that poor man named Lazarus, Jesus said, was riddled with sores and hunger and thirst. And he would gladly have eaten the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. And perhaps he did, or why else did he hang out at the gates?
Ultimately, both the rich man and Lazarus die. As Jesus tells the parable, they both die. And the rich man, Jesus tells us, had a burial. And the Greek word means an extravagant burial. But Jesus doesn’t even mention a burial for the poor man. But he does say, “The poor man was taken by angels into paradise. And the poor man sat down at table at a great feast, and he sat right next to the patriarch Abraham.” And Jesus tells us the rich man, on the other hand, went straight to Hades where he was miserable, but he was allowed to see Lazarus seated next to Abraham in paradise. And the rich man cried out and he said, “Father Abraham, have mercy.” He said, “Father Abraham, at least send Lazarus to give me some water.” And Abraham said, “It is not possible. There is a great gulf that separates paradise and Hades, and these conditions are eternal.”
We’re left to ponder what this rich man had done that had placed him in eternal judgment. And you see, all that he had done is that he was so rich and so happy while somebody was miserable and poor at his very gates. That’s what he had done. And so the rich man says, “Well, you know, at least Abraham send Lazarus, to warn my family that they might begin to be more merciful and compassionate, so they won’t be here with me.” And Abraham said, “I tell you, even if someone were to rise from the dead and go to them, they would not change their hearts. They already have Moses. They already have the prophets. They’re surrounded by poverty and they do nothing.”
Is this not judgment upon our times, in our suburban culture and even the evangelical church? We not only have Moses and the prophets, but we have Jesus and the apostles. We have not only the Old Testament, but the new as well. And we are surrounded by poverty. There’s poverty at the gates. I mean, if mankind is basically good, why is there so much poverty all over America through the inner cities? And if mankind is basically good, why are 2 billion people starving to death today in this world?
Have you read Matthew 25 and have you thought about it? Where Jesus said that one day he would come again and he would separate the sheep from the goats, and he would place the sheep at his right hand, and he would say to them, “Come, O blessed of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world, because I was hungry and you gave me to eat, and I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink, and I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick and imprisoned, and you visited me. I was a stranger, homeless, and you welcomed me.” And to those on his left, he would say, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, into the lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. Naked, you clothed me not. Sick and imprisoned, you visited me not. A stranger, homeless, and you welcomed me not.”
Does that say anything to you? I struggle with that and maybe you do too. But, you see, we’re all fallen. We’re all sinners in need of grace, in need of mercy. Thank God for Jesus. Thank God for his death on the cross. Thank God He is the savior and the hope of the world. But if you really believe in him, if you really believe in him, if you really hunger and thirst after righteousness, aren’t you going to want to live the way he tells us to live?
As we look at the future of our church, it seems to me that we want to continue to proclaim the gospel with clarity. And we want to proclaim it all over the world. We want to continue to speak the truth in love. We want to indeed warn all of the people of Christ regarding those things that are evil in his sight. But we also as a church want to begin to manifest greater compassion, greater love, greater mercy, and greater concern with social justice. I thank God for our Manna Ministries. I thank God for Gene Kissinger, who is doing such a great job with our Missions Department and who has such a burden for the inner city. Don’t buy into the lie. We need revival in America.
You know, I’ve been meeting with a group of pastors. It’s kind of a strange group. I’m just amazed that I’m in this group. There’s about 15 of us, and we formed a committee, and most of the people in this group are Pentecostal pastors. There’s only a few of us who are non-Pentecostals. We’ve come together out of our love for Christ and our common burden for the inner city and for the poor. I sometimes leave the meetings thinking, “You know, Lord, how did you get me in this group?”
I have these stereotypical images of Pentecostals—that they all wear double-breasted suits and are laden with jewelry. You know, some of the guys are kind of like that. What I’ve discovered is, beyond that, there’s this great love. They have a great love for Christ and for people. And of course, the prayer times are different. At our first meeting, they said, “Jim, would you close in prayer?” And I said, “Dear Lord,” and then I couldn’t hear myself think after that because they all began to pray in tongues. It was like, “Gentlemen, start your engines.” But I’m sure that as they left the meeting that they must have thought—thinking of the non-Pentecostals—they probably thought, “You know, those guys don’t know how to dress. They don’t know how to pray.” But hopefully they also thought, “But they love Christ, and they care about people.”
What we feel God is doing in this group is we’re trying to bring clergy together throughout the city. We’re trying to link suburban and urban. And many of the pastors in this group are inner city pastors. And we’ve rented McNichols Sports Arena for May 28th, Friday night. We’re going to have an event called “Denver Link ‘94” coming together in the cause of Christ. We want to link urban and suburban Pentecostal, non-Pentecostal Catholic, Protestant, rich and poor, black and white, Hispanic and White, Hispanic and Black, Asian, and the name of Christ.
We’re grateful what God is doing and we’re hopeful that the Roman Catholic Archbishop will say the invocation and the opening prayer, and we’re grateful that the Catholic church has endorsed this and they’re sending Pope John Paul II’s personal choir, 250 voices, to McNichols that night. And we’re also going to have a 500-voice choir which is going to be led by the Minister of Music at Heritage Christian Center. We’re going to have the Holy Smoke band there and Crossroads Church with Tom Styke. They’re going to have their band there. It’s going to be a great night musically.
It’s going to be a night of evangelism. We want to see people come to Christ. It’s going to be, hopefully by the grace of God, a movement of the Holy Spirit when people come together with a burden for the inner city. All around McNichols Arena, there’s going to be booths where various ministries can let you know what they’re seeking to do in the inner city and where, hopefully, in love and compassion, we can volunteer to participate in ministry to those who are less fortunate than us.
The people on the board, particularly the inner city black pastors, said to me, “Jim, you’ll never get Cherry Hills people to come to McNichols for this.” I told them that they’re wrong, and I really believe they are wrong. And I really pray and trust that you’re going to want to be part of this. And you know, my prayer is that God might use this night as just a domino in a series of events that could help bring revival here in Denver and help bring revival in our culture and time, that the Spirit of God might move on the hearts of many and we might weep at our own sin and our corporate sin and we might deny the lie and no longer simply be victims but responsible people who seek solution and resolution. I hope that we begin to become people of compassion and mercy and people who reach out with the love of Jesus Christ. We need revival in our time. Let’s close with a word of prayer.