Truth, Lies and Snidely Whiplash
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:16-21)
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I grew up watching Rocky and Bullwinkle and loving it. A friend and I attended a Rocky and Bullwinkle film festival (yes, they do have such things) and found ourselves almost as entertained by a few Bullwinkle loving parents trying desperately to explain the jokes to their young kids as by the shows themselves.
My favorite is an episode with Dudley DoRight and Snidely Whiplash. In case you weren’t so enchanted with talking moose and flying squirrels (or too young to know better), let me fill you in.
Snidely Whiplash is the show’s villain, and perhaps even the caricature on which so many other villains are based. The episode opens with Snidely lamenting what a pathetic, disgusting creature he’s become. You see, he has a nasty habit of tying helpless young ladies to railroad tracks. (“I have this thing,” he explains.)
His favorite victim is the delightful Nell Fenwick, a beautiful damsel with lovely blonde curls who is always rescued just in the nick of time by her brave and daring boyfriend, Dudley DoRight of the Royal Canadian Mounties.
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DoRight hates Whiplash, and sets a trap for him. Since he’s come to hate himself so profoundly, Whiplash is thrilled with his capture and incarceration.
Oddly enough, his erstwhile victim, Nell Fenwick, comes to his aid. Legal aid, that is. She argues he’s been falsely arrested and sets about to challenge DoRight in court.
In his strategy session, DoRight explains that though Nell does have truth on her side, he’s most certain to win because he has the advantage of superior deception. His ability to twist facts and law and truth will most certainly win out over any real truth Nell may have to offer.
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I can’t tell you how often I’ve been sidelined by this superior deception. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I take the lies, the falsehoods, the stupid stuff that the enemy throws down and take hold of it like it were truth.
It may not be true, I think, but at least it sounds better. It seems to make more sense.
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In the third chapter of John, we read God’s plan for the world. Words we love to hear. If we’ve only attended church for an hour, hopefully we’ve heard these words.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
That’s the truth.
It’s also the truth that He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. He hardly needed to make such an enormous and costly and painful sacrifice only to condemn the world.
He could have done that without getting out of His chair.
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But He sent His Son. So that through Him the world might be saved.
That’s us.
That’s the truth.
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And what did we do with that truth?
We traded it for superior deception. Listen,
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
The Truth comes. The Light comes. And we say, “Oh, well thank you so much, but we like it here in the dark. Yeah, it’s dark, and it’s cold, and it’s sometimes nasty and scary. But it’s familiar. And nobody can really see us here. We take the light, and we are exposed.”
Exposed by the Light? Absolutely.
Condemned by Him? Absolutely not.
He came to save the world. Not to condemn it.
If we allow ourselves to accept the truth, reject the superior deception, we find we are saved.
And our exposure? It’s covered.
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Jesus said over and over and over throughout the Gospels, “I tell you the truth…” He doesn’t lie.
The truth will indeed set us free.
If we can just keep the Dudley DoRights and their superior deception out of our way.
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Comments from original publication:
6/23/2008 7:27 PM Muggy wrote:
Who is this Lyla lady? She needs to be published!
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6/25/2008 9:50 AM Paul wrote:
Amen Muggy!! That’s what I told her too.
2009/04/19 at 4:01 AM
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