Quote from Forum Archives on February 11, 2008, 10:30 am

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

 

SERIES: THE WAY OUT OF THE MESS #1/7

 

OF MEN, NOT MICE

February 3, 2008

 

 

Text: Genesis 3:1-19

 

 

We are in a mess.  We are in a big mess, and most people aren’t even aware of it.  Or, if they have some awareness of the mess we’re in, they deny and ignore it, then get mad at anyone who reminds them of the mess we’re in.  Well, Pastor, are you going to tell us who is in a mess and what the mess is?

 

I suspect that you have an idea of my answers already as I read from Genesis 3.  The “we” is the entire human race and the “what” is sin.  We are in a big mess, and it keeps getting bigger.  How many of you knew that last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday?  If you were here last Sunday, you heard me mention it.  How many of you heard about the services held by some faith groups?  Ash Wednesday services were stark reminders of our frailty and mortality.  The bit of ash placed on the forehead is a symbol of the dust to which we return.  We are all doomed, and we work hard to put this out of our thoughts.  So maybe that is why we do not see much coverage about Ash Wednesday.

 

Oh, but what about Fat Tuesday?  Anyone ever hear of Mardi Gras?  Of course we do.  Even before the post-Katrina rebuilding, the New Orleans Mardi Gras was an annual feature of about every media outlet there is.  It’s festive; it’s joyful; it’s naughty; it’s decadent.  It captures our attention because it’s fun.  Originally, the purpose of Fat Tuesday was to splurge a little before the designated days of fast, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, in Lent, and the refraining of eating meat on Fridays during Lent.  So, in preparation for days of self-control, people practice a few days out of control beforehand.  The problem, though, is that the “out of control” days have expanded to cover pretty much the entire year for most people.  Mardi Gras is hardly the only festival that celebrates decadence, debauchery, and paganism.  Consider, for instance, the burning man festival held annually in the Nevada desert.  Billed as a celebration of art and radical self-expression, the anything-goes five-day party draws people from all around the world.  The organization’s description of itself states, “There are no rules about how one must behave or express oneself at this event (save the rules that serve to protect the health, safety, and experience of the community at large); rather, it is up to each participant to decide how they will contribute and what they will give to this community.”  (www.burningman.com/whatisburningman)  Christian missions’ researcher George Otis, Jr., reported from burning man several years ago.  Drug use is tolerated and clothing is optional.  The climax of the festival is the ceremonial torching of a 52-foot-high wooden man for which the event is named.  After a solemn, freakish procession marches up to the statue, the cheering crowd dances in painted skin and loincloths and screams in ecstasy.  Otis reported that the event is thoroughly pagan and filled with horror.  He saw people dressed as demons performing pagan rituals, men and women dancing nude before fiery idols, and revelers daring God to consume them with brimstone.  The final procession around the burning man celebrates the knowledge that all the dancers will one day enter hell.  We are in a mess.

 

The mess that we’re in had a beginning point, and that point is told us in Genesis 3.  The first man and the first woman began their lives with a relationship with God.  They were in relationship with God from their very beginning.  Now we are not given much detail about what that relationship looked like.  We know that God met them and spoke with them in the Garden.  It was a pure, undefiled relationship.  God loved His creation, and His creation loved God.

 

God did not create Adam or Eve to be “zombies” or robots.  He created them with the ability to make choices; they were given rational thought and the ability to use it.  They could take in the data their surroundings offered, process it, and make decisions just as we do.  Even their relationship with God, even though initiated by Him, was dependent upon their decision to remain in that relationship.  The gift of free-will that God gave to Adam and Eve was demonstrated by the presence of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the instruction to not eat from it.  One of the facets that make a relationship is boundaries.  A relationship indicates that those involved are dedicated to one another.  No matter what the defining boundaries of any relationship are, if they are crossed, then the relationship is damaged; oftentimes, it is completely broken.

 

Adam and Eve had a boundary.  They made the choice to cross that boundary and replace their obedient relationship with a disobedient relationship.  “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”  As it turns out, this was an eternal breach in the covenant relationship God had established with His creation.  Love was broken not because God withheld any of His love, it was broken because a man and a woman made their choices to violate the simple command of God.  They had help in making this decision; the serpent was not without guilt in this drama.  But it was their decision that led to their disobedience, and their disobedience led to the breaking of their covenant relationship with God.  They were in a mess.

 

As a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, all of us are in a mess.  In 1785, Robert Burns wrote a poem titled “To a Mouse.”  The famous line from that poem is “The best-laid plans of mice and men / Go oft awry.”  The choice that Adam and Eve made in the Garden certainly went awry, but it had nothing to do with mice.  It had, and has, everything to do with men.  It has everything to do with man’s ruptured relationship with God.  It has everything to do with the open rebellion against God that we see today in Mardi Gras, the burning man festival, and other pagan schemes cooked up by men and women around the world.  It has everything to do with the often successful attempts these days to twist minds into believing that good is evil and that evil is good.  “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16-17)

 

We are in a mess because sin is unavoidable, and, instead of acknowledging and confessing it, we do it, hide it, or even attempt to transform it into acceptable behavior.  But none of those schemes ever works.  They did not work in the Garden.  They only result in more sin, more misery, and more condemnation.

 

What is sin?  As Genesis 3 makes clear to us, sin is disobeying and breaking the covenant relationship God established with us.  It is any violation of God’s righteous character, anything we say or do or think or imagine or plan that does not meet God’s standard of holiness.  Sin is lawlessness, meaning it is anything that ignores or violates God’s standard.  Sin is missing the mark.  Our lives are like the arrow that we want to hit the bull’s-eye, but we end up not even hitting the target.  Sin causes us to aim our lives in the wrong direction and to miss the mark of what God wants us to do and be.  Sin is transgression, which means violating those boundaries that God says is good and proper.  Sin is iniquity, the word used to indicate premeditated, not accidental, disobedience.  Sin is deviation from the standard God established.  This describes a crookedness of the soul that results in a life full of twisted choices, evil deeds, and broken relationships.  All of this describes what Adam and Eve did.  When they ate the fruit, they fell from a state of innocence into a state of guilt.  They fell from grace to judgment.  They fell from life to death.  And because of their act of disobedience, the stain of their guilt has been passed on to every one of us.  These descriptions of sin depict the condition of men, not mice.  To deny that sin is anything less than completely infective to the human condition - to view it as something that we can overcome with the right knowledge or the right science or the right environment or the right government - is to ultimately lift the created - humanity - above the Creator - God.  And that brings us back to where we began!  This attitude and behavior is the very essence of the sin told to us in the Garden account.  We are in a mess.

 

In John 8:1-11, the account is told of some Pharisees and teachers of the law who presented a woman caught in adultery to Jesus.  “They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.  Now what do you say?’” (John 8:4-5)  As they kept on questioning him, Jesus said to them, “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)  As a result of his challenge, Jesus demonstrated two things.  First, not a single one of the Pharisees and teachers of the law could make the claim that they were without sin.  At least they were honest in this regard.  Not one of them, not the woman caught in adultery, and not one of us can truthfully make the claim to be without sin.  We are in a mess.

 

Second, after all had left except the woman, Jesus asked, “Has no one condemned you?”  In response to her reply, “No one, sir,” Jesus declared, “Then neither do I condemn you.” (John 8:10-11)  Only Jesus has the demonstrated authority, power, and will to forgive sin.  And more than that, not only does Jesus forgive sin, he removes sin.  He blots it out.  What we know that the woman did not know is that Jesus pays the price of the penalty for our sin.  The relationship with God that was broken by Adam and Eve so long ago, and that is still broken by us in our own day, is repaired by the love of the Savior himself.  We are in a mess, but the Lord has lifted us out.

 

This is the message that we receive as we progress from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.  There is a way out of the mess we are in.  It is as simple as A, B, C.  Admit to God that you are a sinner and repent, meaning turn away from sin.  Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and accept God’s gift of forgiveness and removal of sin.  Confess your faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  We are in a mess, but the Lord has lifted us out.

 

 

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

170 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com

 

 

 

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