If Truth Hurts, Why Do Lies Feel Safer?

What if the life you own still feels unpowered? We open John 8 and sit with a bracing claim from Jesus: everyone who sins is a slave to sin, but the Son sets slaves free. Pastor Carl walks us through the uncomfortable beauty of that truth—why religious pedigree cannot rescue us, why proud hearts mishear God, and why keeping Jesus’ word is the doorway into real freedom.

We explore a simple image to ground big theology: a gift without batteries. Your salvation is secure, yet the world remains fallen. Christ forgives your past and seals your future, but life between those points needs power. That power is his Spirit, who teaches us to trade image management for surrender, to recognize lies that feel safe, and to welcome hard words that heal. Along the way, we press into Jesus’ challenge to the most devout voices of his day: claiming Abraham while refusing the truth made flesh exposes our alignment. Truth has a Father. So do lies.

Then we tackle the promise that raised eyebrows: “He shall never see death.” Jesus clarifies it with Martha—he is the resurrection and the life. Bodies still fail, but for those who abide in him, death becomes a threshold, not an end. Pastor Carl points us to the hope of resurrection bodies—no sin, no sickness, no dim sight—and shows how that future steadies courage now. Hope is not escape; it is fuel for obedience. We close by inviting you to keep your spiritual fervor, let Scripture correct you, and gather with us to grow in heart and mind.

If this message stirred you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review with one line about what challenged you most—your words help others find real freedom too.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

We're born separated from God. And although we're living, we're really not alive. We're not alive until the Lord changes us and revives us and gives us life. He is the resurrection. And part of our salvation is realizing that someday we will have new bodies in which no sin dwells, no sickness, no blurry eyes.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Have you ever been given a gift only to have the gift giver forget to include batteries? The gift can't be fully enjoyed right away. Today, Pastor Carl reminds you that this is like your life in Christ. When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your sins are forgiven and your eternity is sealed. But in the meantime, you still live in a fallen, broken world. There is still disease and hardship. Until you step into glory, where your new batteries will be included, and you will enjoy eternity in a perfected body. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Verse 34. Jesus answered and said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits a sin is a slave to sin. You might not be a slave to Rome, which you are, you might not be a slave to Babylon, which you were, you might not be a slave to Assyria, which you were. You might not be a slave to Egypt, which you were, but you're definitely a slave to sin. Because of our parents, Adam and Eve, sin came into the picture. And everyone is born into sin, and we are slaves to sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. You know, if you're just servants and you're a servant to sin, you can't make it into the house of the Lord. But family members can. And you say you're part of Abraham's family, but you are, but you're not. You're family members, but your heart is not there. But you know what? I come from I come from heaven. God is my father. And there's a place for me there, and there's a place for you there if you were to believe. If you were to be set free. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Because the one who in fact is God, who became a man, is standing before you, offering you life, offering you forgiveness, offering you victory over your slavery, over sin. And if I sent you free, there's nothing else you need to do to be made free. You will be free indeed. Do we realize the power of the gospel? He has set us free, not because of our actions, but because of his actions on the cross. We are free if we believe. I know you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. Look, I'm speaking the truth. My word is going forward. These guys over here, they're believing me. They're being changed because they believe the word of God. They have faith now. And they're seeking after me, they're finding me, they're abiding in me. But you're not, it's not sticking with you. You're ignoring it, you're closing your ears and you're covering your eyes, something like that. You say you're Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. I speak what I have seen from my father, and you do what you have seen from your father. And he's building up to an accusation here. And they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you might be Abraham's descendants, but you're not his children. You're not walking by that same faith that he walked in. If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But you seek to kill me. A man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God, and not just any man. Jesus says, the God man standing right in front of them, declaring the truth out of his love and compassion for humanity. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father. And again, he's not saying who the father is yet, but he's challenging their position as saying, we are the sons of Abraham. We are the sons of faith. How can you be sons of faith if you don't believe the one that gave Abraham the faith? You're not walking by faith. You're walking by by works. You're doing this religious thing. Do you think it's your position that makes you right with God? You know, I've been born of Abraham, that makes me right. There are no grandchildren in heaven. Did you hear that before? Each of us needs to come to faith personally in Jesus Christ. And he's made a way. And then they just start to throw an insult at him. And they said to him, We were not born of fornication, parenthesis, like you, because everybody knows your mama didn't have you with Joseph, who's somebody else. We have one father, God. We are God's chosen people. He is our father. And you, who are you to talk about this? You're you're illegitimate. Through the eyes of the world and through their perspective. And if you looked at the situation, you might agree that, you know, anybody who finds themselves pregnant has done something to cause that, haven't they? That's how it works in the world today. Except for this fact that God intervened in this situation in a way that has never happened before and never will happen again. The incarnation. God was the father, Mary was the mother, and Jesus is the incarnate Son of God born as a baby. Not a fornication, but the purest birth ever. But they don't see that. They see things with the world's eyes. Which again sometimes makes sense. But so often we look at things from the world's perspective, from human eyes, that we miss what God is doing, even though in his grace he's revealing it to us and showing us because we don't want to see it. Let's not be like the Jewish religious leaders. Then Jesus said to him in verse 42, If God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. Nor I have come of myself, but he has sent me. I have submitted myself to become a man and to live as a man this life as I intended man to live in subjection to God, denying myself, picking up my cross and following after the Lord. But you don't hear me, you don't love me, because you don't really have God as your father. You have him as this idol that you've developed and formed from the law in the Old Testament, and you have this power structure and you want to control people, and yet you don't know me. Why do you not understand my speech? These everyday people here are understanding it. They're believing me, they're being changed by me. Why can't you understand it? I mean, you are indeed the representatives of God to man or man to God. You are the ones that people are looking to to see a picture of the Lord and to be led to the Lord, and yet you don't even know the Lord. Do you see the irony in this, Jesus is saying? The reason is because you are not able to listen to my word. You're not able or you don't want to. And the want to restricts our abilities, right? To be able to hear the word of God, to be changed by the word of God, we need a willingness to hear what God is saying to us. And when God tells us that we're sinners, we don't like that. And we want to go our own way and we want to hear something else that kind of encourages us and builds us up and pats us on the back. You're all right, everything's good. The point is we're not alright. We are stuck in sin, we're slaves to sin, we're headed to hell, and we need a savior. And we need to be told that. And yet there is good news, and we are encouraged in it because Jesus loves us and he laid his life down for us. He took the price of our sin, he represented us on the cross so that we would have a way where there was no way. But to enter into that freedom, enter into that forgiveness, enter into that relationship, enter into that blessing that God has for us, we have to start with the bad news, don't we? And I don't think the Pharisees wanted to hear the bad news, because that would mean that what they were doing was wrong. And how could they be wrong as leaders of the people? They had to be right so people could follow them, right? And then Jesus says it. Verse 44 You are of your father, the devil. Abraham's not your father, God's not your father. You know who your father is? It's the devil. And the desires of your father you want to do. He is your father because the things that you're doing are the things that he does. Your heart, your thinking, your actions reflect those of the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning. And what are you trying to do? You're trying to kill me. And just not stand in the truth. You're rejecting me. I am the truth. I'm standing before you. I'm revealing it to you. But you don't want to have anything to do with it because you have your own truth. You have your own way. The devil said, I got my own way of doing things. I don't want to listen to him. And you're doing the same thing. And when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Of course, if you don't walk in truth, what are you walking in? Lies. I mean, there's no in-between, is there? You're either in the truth or you're not in the truth. And if you're not in the truth, you're walking in deception. You're a liar. He's a liar and the father of it all. And you're offsprings of that. In fact, we're all offsprings of that, right? That goes back to the fall of Adam and Eve. Because of what the serpent did in beguiling Eve, sin entered into the picture. And we were all born into this fallen world that is full of lies and murder. Jesus comes to turn it all around. Jesus comes to set us free from that deception, from that death. 45, but because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. You're going your own way. You're like your father, the devil. You don't believe the truth. You don't believe me. Let me ask you something. Which of you convicts me of sin? Can you truly find something that actually I've done that is a sin against God? Instead of twisting scripture and manipulating things, setting up situations, trying to trap me in my words, trying to manufacture something to convict me of. That's what they were doing here. That's the scheme of the enemy, and it's alive and well today, isn't it? Lord have mercy on us. He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore, you do not hear, because you are not of God. The reason you don't understand what I'm saying is because you need to be saved. The reason you don't understand what I'm saying is because you have a different perception of what the word says, except when the word is declared by me, who is the living word, Jesus is saying, you don't believe it. You don't hear it. Because you haven't been changed by God. I want you to be changed by God, is what Jesus is saying. I'm saying this not to insult you, not to put you down, not to not to take you out of the position that I put you in, but I'm saying this because I want you to know the truth which will set you free. But you don't want it. You think you're of God, but you're not. This is a warning. How many people in the church today think they know God when they don't know God? And often it's the fruits that we see in our lives and lives of other people around it. The things that the church in general endorses today go against the heart of God. How can they know God if they're doing that? May we seek to know the Lord. May we listen to his words, may we let him change us from the inside out, which is good because there's great blessing in that, but it's also hard because there's a lot of correction, a lot of changes, a lot of fixing that God needs to do in our hearts. And it hurts sometimes, doesn't it? But it's good because he's setting us free. Then the Jews answered and said to him, Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? You're talking crazy. And you're disrespecting God's authority and these people here. You must have a demon in you. We know you're a Samaritan because you're from Samaria, which is an implication that you're a false teacher, you're a heretic. They called heretics Samaritans, because Samaritans kind of were a little loose in their following of the law. They weren't like the Jews in Jerusalem, which were holy. They had God in their temple, in their town. We're more important than anybody else. But you're from Samaria. Which he wasn't from Samaria, he was from Galilee. And Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father. And you dishonor me. I have the Holy Spirit, I do not have a demonic spirit. That Holy Spirit causes me to honor my father, and you dishonor me, so I question what spirit you have that's directing you. And I do not seek my own glory, but there is one who seeks and judges. Verse 50 is a is written a little bit strange because it almost sounds like, and I do not seek my own glory, but there is one who seeks and judges, which is Him, because He becomes the judge of all things, right? And so I was a bit confused. Sometimes when you get confused, it's good to go read some other versions to get an idea of what might be said. And in the New Living Translation, it put it this way: And though I have no wish to glorify myself, God is going to glorify me. He is the true judge. God rightly divides what's going on here. As a man, I have submitted myself to following God the Father. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, let your will be done. As a man, he really didn't want to go through the crucifixion. Do you blame him? But because the joy that laid before him, Christ endured the cross, he submitted himself to the Father. He never sinned, even though he had these emotions that could lead to sin, but he always took control of them and he submitted them back to the Father. Not my will, let your will be done. May we learn from him in that way. So in verse 51, it says, Most assuredly I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. If anyone listens, if anyone believes, if anyone takes a hold of, if anyone abides in the words that I am sharing, because it is the word. I am the truth. If you do that, you will not taste of death. Which was confusing to the religious leaders, and we'll see that in the next verse or two. Because, like, well, people are still dying. What do you mean? Well, Jesus clarified this in a few chapters later on, in the story of raising Lazarus from the dead. And he had a little conversation with Martha. Do you remember this one? In John 11, verse 25, I am the resurrection and the life. He is life. He is resurrection, taking us from death and putting us into life. He who believes in me, though he may die physically, he shall live spiritually. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die spiritually. Do you believe this? So he clarified that to Martha. We will never die. We will have eternal life, and yet we die, don't we? It's confusing, but it's it's this death of the old physical person in this body of death as Paul describes it. In fact, without being in the life, we spent our whole lives born dead. We're born separated from God. And although we're living, we're really not alive. We're not alive until the Lord changes us and revives us and gives us life. He is the resurrection. And part of our salvation is realizing that someday we will have new bodies in which no sin dwells, no sickness, no blurry eyes, no heartburn, no desire to reject God. And as believers, don't you yearn for that? I mean, we we all still have this challenge with sin, don't we? We struggle with sin. Paul struggled with sin. But because the Lord has changed us, we realize there's more to life than this. And we yearn that we wouldn't have these feelings, these struggles. And the answer is coming when we we have our salvation, our full salvation realized, we will have new bodies. Now to transition between the old body and a new body requires death. These old bodies have to be done away with. Do you want to trade in your body? It involves death, a physical death. Or A transition in the air as the Lord comes and takes his church home. But that's still a death. This old body will be put away, and we'll be given a new resurrected body that's built for eternity. Are you ready for that? I mean, that is part of our salvation. That is part of the great hope. That's why we're one of the reasons we're waiting for Jesus to return. Our blessed hope is the return of Christ to free us from this world, from this body, and give us a new beginning and a new body that's built for eternity. So although we may die physically, if we know him and believe in him, we shall live eternally. And he clarified that to Martha. But the uh religious leaders there didn't quite understand what he was talking about. And the Jews said to him, Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and you say if anyone keeps my word, he shall never taste death. Huh? And in a court of law, in human reasoning, their argument makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? The problem is there are certain evidences that are not considered by them, which the Lord has brought in and made a case for. Which is there's more to this life than just this life. Jesus has come from eternity to give us God's perspective on eternal life. And if you don't consider that, of course, it's not going to make any sense. But God in his grace, he reveals these things to us. So just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it's not true. If it doesn't make sense to you, maybe you ought to go seek and find the truth.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

You've been listening to Pastor Carl on Come On Up. We're in the book of John. John had been a simple fisherman before meeting Jesus. He was actually a disciple of John the Baptist before realizing that John the Baptist was just paving the way for Jesus to enter the scene. There were so many examples for John to observe, where Jesus made something out of nothing. He fed the 5,000, he brought about a boatload of fish when there had been no bites all night. These miraculous happenings were all around them, and John couldn't help but be enamored by Jesus Christ. What about you? Has the newness of knowing or following Jesus worn off? Are you apathetic about what God's doing in your life or how he's working and how he's trying to speak to you? Keep that spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. John lived a full life devoted to the Lord, and even though he was persecuted and tortured, he never swayed from telling people about the hope and faith he had in Jesus. After all, he had lived with Jesus for three and a half years and had learned much about the heart of God. A way for you to keep learning about the heart of God is by joining us on Sunday mornings at Smokey Mountain Cinema in Waynesville for Bible study. We also have a faith film night the first Monday of every month. We offer quality Christian entertainment that challenges your faith and spurs good conversation. Learn more at themountaincross.com or search for Faith Film Night on Facebook. That's all for today. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.