Sermon, 3/30/03 am

Jim Huskey, Nothing New - Same Old Stuff

Over in the book of Ecclesiastes there is an interesting statement in

chapter one. It is a statement I'm sure some supposed learneds of our

generation would probably disagree with; but it is a true statement,

nonetheless. Ecclesiastes 1:9 reads,"The thing that hath been, it is that

which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and

there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may

be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was

before us." Eccl. 1:9,10.

There are so many people in the world today who think the Bible is out

of date, just doesn't really measure up to the problems with which

modern man is confronted. Well, I want us, with Solomon's words in the

book of Ecclesiastes in the back of our mind, to all way back to the

book of Genesis, chapter 3. "Now the serpent was more subtil than any

beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the

woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the

garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit

of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the

midst of the garden, Gad hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall

ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall

not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then

your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and

evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that

it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,

she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her

husband with her; and he did eat." Gen. 3:1-6. Did you get that?

She saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the

eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. Now keep those in the

back of your mind. It appealed to the eye; it appealed to the lust of

the flesh, it was good for food; it was to be desired to make one wise,

the pride of life. Now before we go any further, I'm here to tell you

today that there "ain't nothing" new under the sun. The things that

plagued man when he first made his appearance on the earth and the

devil came in contact with him are the very same things that are at the

root of man's problems today. Things have not changed.

Now isn't that amazing!!!! Man has gotten so smart. Oh, the things

that can be done today, the things that can be known today, it excites

me in one respect and scares me in another. The technology that's

being evidenced with the war, we're right there, thousands of miles

away, yet we can see what's going. Reporters are embedded with little

ole hand-held computer apparatus cell-phone type things that take

pictures; while they are there, we can see it all occurring right in

our own living room. The storehouse of man's knowledge has just

increased in an unreal manner. Yet, with all man has accomplished and

learned in the field of technology, science, medicine, all these things,

he's still just as STUPID AS HE WAS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN!!!!

Well, let's leave Genesis 3 and go to Matthew 4. You know there's an

old adage in sports and a lot of other areas - if something works,

keep doing it until it quits working. Now I want you to listen to

this. "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wildnerness to be

tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights,

he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he

said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made

bread. (What did it say? He was hungry. What did Eve see? The fruit

of the tree was good for food.) But he answered and said, It is

written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that

proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him into the

holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto

him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written,

He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands

they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against

a stone. (Wouldn't you like to have the knowledge that if you fell off

a cliff you'd never hit the bottom; that you'd be borne up by angels?

Pride of life. The fruit of the tree was desired, to make one wise.)

Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and

sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and

saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall

down and worship me. (The appeal to the eye, to the wealth, the splendor,

the majesty of the world and its kingdoms.) Matt. 4:1-6; 8,9.

The very same tactics Satan has used in the garden of Eden were the

one he used in trying to entrap Jesus himself.

Then we turn over to I John 2:15 beginning. John writes, "Love not the

world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the

world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the

world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride

of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world

passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God

abideth for ever." I John 2:15-17. All that's in the world that

Satan uses to tempt us with boils down to the very things that were

there at the very beginning!!!!

Now if you don't believe that, let me just throw out a few things for

you. What will make an athlete take drugs that can enhance his

performance? Oh, it will "make me bigger, faster, stronger". PRIDE OF

LIFE. What is it that will make a teenager begin using marijuana, or

speed or any of the drugs? Oh it "makes me feel so good". That's

where it starts, anyhow - get that "high". What makes a person turn

to alcohol? Oh, it "gives me that buzz; it let's me be a big man when

I'm really a little man; it allows me to get by with saying things I

wouldn't otherwise say; and it feels good". (at least for a while -

until you're wrapped with your arms around "johnnie", throwing up your

guts, your toenails and everything else; but for a little while it

makes you feel like a lion) What is it that makes a man like Saddam

Hussein do what he does? What is it that makes him treat other people,

his own people, the way he does? It makes him feel BIG, it makes him

feel POWERFUL, makes him feel INVINCEABLE!!!! The pride of life!!!!

What is it that makes women dress the way they sometimes dress? To

appeal to the eyes.

Now what did you say, Solomon? 'The thing that has been done, it will

be done again; the things that will be done are the things that have

been done.' There's not really any new thing under the sun. There

may be a new way of presenting it. Man is still the same as he was in

the garden of Eden. The things that proved to be his 'thorne in the

flesh' in the garden of Eden are still the same things that he has to

deal with today and the things that bring him down. Yet, somebody

comes along and says, The Bible is out of date because man is

different now. HE IS???????? No he's not!!!!!!!!! If something

works, the devil is going to keep on using it. It's still working!!!!

It's still working!!!! The problems man has that he brings upon

himself are usually the end result of the lust of the flesh, the lust

of the eye and the pride of life. So "ain't nothing" new; it's the

same old stuff.

Now let me ask you another question. That being true, how then do

some determine that the Bible is out of date when the Bible said

nothing is new a long time ago. The Bible was designed to deal with

man as he was and as he is. Man is still the same. He likes those

things that appeal to the eye; he likes those things that appeal to

the lust of the flesh whether it be food, pleasure, whatever; he likes

those things that make him feel bigger, better, stronger, more

powerful, more infuential, all these things, just as Eve did in the

garden of Eden.

Now the Bible was adapted to man as he is. Now someone says it was

written hundreds and thouands of years ago - yes it was. Man hasn't

changed. Man hasn't changed!!!!! He's still just as stupid now as he

was then. Somebody will say 'preacher, that's a little strong.' I'll

say it again. Man is just as stupid, well maybe MORE stupid; maybe

he's "STUPIDER" now than he was then, and here's why. Eve found out

that things may not always be as they appear to be. Did she become

wiser? Oh, she did. She found out she was naked; she found out some-

thing else - that she wouldn't be living in paradise anymore - that in

order to propagate the race she would go down into the very jaws of

death to bring forth children. Did it make Adam any wiser? Yes. It

made him have to learn how to deal with briars and roots and thornes

and thistles the rest of his life, just to be able to eat. Can't we

look around and see that? That's still the way it is today. How

many people go out and plant a garden and don't have to go out and dig

weeds, briars, etc. out of it????? That's what God says was going to

happen, it's been happening for thouands of years and man still hasn't

learned from it. That all came about because man listened to his

eyes, his lust of the flesh, and his pride of life. We've got all

these generations that have proceeded us that have been illustrating

the same principle, over and over again, and we still don't get the

picture.

Solomon over in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 5 said, "He that

loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth

abundance with increase; this is also vanity. When goods increase,

they are increased that eat them; and what good is there to the

owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The

sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but

the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a

sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the

owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail;

and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. As he came

forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came,

and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his

hand." Eccl. 5:10-15. Now Solomon wrote that thousands of years ago

and we see evidence of it every time we go to the cemetery. It was

asked of a wealthy man how much he left when he passed away. Someone

standing by said 'he left it all'.

So you see, like Solomon said, there's nothing new; man hasn't changed.

That being true, the gospel was designed to help man deal with his sin

problem. What's at the root of the sin problem? The lust of the flesh,

the lust of the eye, the pride of life. That's what the gospel was

designed to help man overcome, and to take away the eternal

consequences of them. Since those are still the same problems man has,

why then would one suspect that the very remedy that was designed to

handle that problem is now out of date? Man hasn't changed. He's still

got the same problems, and the gospel was designed to deal with man

as he is. God said a long time ago, "So shall my word be that goeth

forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall

accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing

whereto I sent it." Isa. 55:11. The reason for that was because it

was designed by him who made man and who man better than man knew

himself. So that same old gospel story is just as applicable today as

he was the first time Peter preached it on the day of Pentecost.

Acts 2. There's none righteous, no not one. All have sinned and come

short of the glory of God and the only thing designed to take care of

the sin problem is the gospel - the preaching of the good news of the

cross, the shed blood of the Son of God and the hope that God has made

available for man.

So man may try to pat himself on the back, talk about how smart we

are, how far we've come, but if he's very realistic, he'll have to

look at the fact that we haven't come very far, because we haven't

profited from the mistakes of the past and we've still got the same

problems Adam and Eve had in the garden of Eden. Now if that's

intelligence, then I've missed the definition of the word. Having a

lot of facts at our grasp doesn't mean we're intelligent. If we're

really inteligent, we use the facts we have at hand. That's REAL

intelligence. You see, God gave us those things, gave us the ability to

think and reason, but he's also going to hold us accountable for it.

If we couln't think and reason, then God wouldn't be just in holding us

accountable for the actions we take because we wouldn't know any

better. But you see, he gave us the ability to reason and gave us the

facts with which to reason, then he holds us accountable. The gospel

doesn't need to be updated, it doesn't need to be modenized, it doesn't

need to be changed, it just needs to be preached, believed and obeyed,

and that was true two thousand years ago and it's still true today.