Debrecen Messages #10 – The Revelation of Our Habitat and The Tree of Knowledge

Now think about it. Good, something about good, maybe not good, but something about good, is sharing space with evil. If this cannot drive us to Christ, nothing can. Be deeply impressed that our gospel has nothing to do with goodness. Goodness, as far as conduct, may be a byproduct, but it is not the source nor the center. Just think about it again. Evil. Good. Good. Evil. Forbidden fruit. Knowledge of good. Understanding of good. Knowing about good. Forbidden. By the Lord.

Now, and sometimes you’ll say, this is a great Christian book showing us the battle between good and evil. I mean, I’ve read this kind of thing. Here is the great battle of the ages between good and evil. Good and evil don’t fight one another. What’s the battle between? The battle is between life and knowledge. This is really getting heavy here, folks. Eat life, don’t eat knowledge. Well, you mean, Gene, we’re supposed to never go to school. Come on, don’t do that to me, but I’m telling you, there’s a great big red sign here that says, Be careful what you eat. Remember the last message? Be careful what you eat. Go tend that garden. Cultivate that garden. Guard that garden and be careful what you eat. And here is a big red sign that says, Be careful about eating knowledge. Be careful about knowing a lot about good. Be careful about knowing a lot about evil. Does this fascinate you? Be careful. Does this fascinate you? I’ll say it. Don’t do it. Does this ring any bells? Do any lights go off? Are you amazed?

I tell you when I look at this and I look at my faith and I look at the practice of my faith, I am aware that everything we have been touching has been tinged with so much knowledge and so much knowledge of good and evil. I would say a typical Christian worker is an expert on what’s good and what’s evil.

And I have to tell my favorite story about good and evil. It comes out of Tyler, Texas, which is my hometown. Now I knew this pastor. He was a pastor. I did not know him well, but I knew very well one of the people who attended the church. And one day he got up and he preached an entire message on wearing high heels, for women, women wearing high heels. Blistered this thing of high heels. This sin. Wicked. Evil. Lustful. Seductive. High heels. Maybe it probably was. He was probably fighting his own battle up there, I know. I understand that.

Now I ask you, is that life, or is that the knowledge of good? It’s the knowledge of evil. Well, the women in the church, of course, a man standing up there behind the pulpit, he’s all dressed up, he’s got a Bible, we sang Holy, Holy, Holy, we’ve got the stained glass windows, we’ve got the steeple, and he’s using God every fifth or sixth word. Well, then you just…it happens, you just get under guilt. This is what’s been going on for 2,000 years in the Christian faith, 3,000 years in the Jewish faith. And all the women in the church felt so terrible. They didn’t come to the pastor. They went to the pastor’s wife. And they said to the pastor’s wife, This is sin, okay. Here’s the high heel. This is sin, and that’s not sin. That’s a low heel. And that is sin. Where does it help us, Pastor? Where does it stop being a sin? Right about there? Right about there? Here? This is really modest here. Where’s the line? Right about there, Joe?

No heel, maybe even barefoot. If you really want to get down to this, barefoot is the only way to go. Okay, so the pastor had his wife put on some high-heeled shoes and measured them. And he finally came up with, about there is okay. Above that is sin. And right about there is modesty. So all the women began measuring the heel on their shoes. And this was not a sin, and that was. I love this story. I love this story. It’s a true story. This really happened. I had my wife as a witness. Do you remember this, sweetheart? I remember hearing about it. Okay. Well, honey, I was sitting there when it was told to us, and…anyway, it was funny.

Is that life? Boy, but I’II tell you, that’s getting down to what’s good and what’s evil. That’s good, and that’s evil. Did that brother understand life? I kind of doubt it. He is pretty typical, and Gene Edwards puts himself in the same group. I have been a good and evil preacher, not a good, and let me revive that, a preacher who, we’ll cut this part out of the video. A preacher who preached on the difference between good and evil. It didn’t last very long in my life. A very short time. Influence, bad influence in my life. And I dropped it. It didn’t fit me very well. How do I feel when I say it? I feel bad. I feel guilty. And I told the Lord many times, please forgive me for that period of time in my life. But sometimes we have to have the law to conduct us to Christ and to liberty and freedom. And I have been a free man for a long time.

It’s a very simple illustration, but it illustrates almost the entire preaching of the gospel. Do you understand that a large part of what is preached on Sunday morning to congregations, especially when a pastor’s been there two or three years, and he’s worn out all of his good sermons, and now he’s dealing with the people’s problems, and he knows their problems. He gets up there and he preaches, oh, don’t do this, and you should do that. And Romania is full of the knowledge of good and evil. You should not do this. You should not do that. Don’t do this. Do this. Don’t do that. Shame on you for doing this. Don’t you dare do that.

Now, can you tell me some of the things, because I want you to help me, what are some of the good and evil things that have been proclaimed by Christian ministry in Romania? Can you help me? And bad things. Wake up at 5 o’clock, read one chapter of the Bible or two, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. Pray as much as you can, fast as much as you can. Don’t drink alcohol.

Okay, those were the good ones. Let me repeat them in case they didn’t get picked up. Get up at 5 in the morning, pray, read one chapter out of the old, one chapter out of the new. Gosh, why? I’d rather read two out of the new and one out of the old. It’s more fun. All right, and fast. Then don’t drink alcohol. Okay. Don’t yoke yourself with non-Christians. Don’t marry a non-Christian, well, okay. Pray that the Lord will awaken you in the night so that you can pray. Oh my gosh, what else? Don’t dress like the world; dress in darker clothes, unhappy clothes, and old clothes. I see a lot of unhappy clothes in Eastern Europe. I just call it that, unhappy. And every once in a while, I see someone dressed happy, and I look around and I wonder, is that someone really, really, really worldly, or is that a Christian? And I can’t tell which it is.

Okay, what are some more things in Romania that have been put into your Christian culture? Can you think? The women cover their heads. Okay, is that in your churches right now? Do sisters wear hats, or do they wear these little things? I believe in this, I want you all to know, if a woman is going to cover her head, there is no indication it’s only in the house of God. It says a woman should have her head covered. I believe that woman, if she’s going to do this, should carry it into the bathroom and take a shower with her head covered. I mean, let’s obey the law.

I have a picture of my parents’ generation at the seaside on the beach with the cover. With the cover on their heads. Oh my goodness. Leave it to an Albanian to really mess up things around here. Okay.