Now, flip over if you would to 2 Thessalonians, Chapter 2 in the New Testament, 2 Thessalonians,
Chapter 2.
Now, part of hating lying is that we love the truth.
If you love the truth, you're going to hate lying.
That's why the Bible said, "I hate an abhor lying, but thy law do I love."
Of course, God's Word is the ultimate example of truth.
It is the essence of truth.
It is the epitome of truth.
And so David's love for God's Word is connected to his hatred for lies.
He also said, "I hate every false way.
I don't like things that are deceptive or wrong or false or lies because I love the
truth."
Now, we as Christians should be lovers of truth.
That should be something about our character that we should be known for.
That should be just a part of our being is that if you're a Christian, you're someone
who loves truth.
You seek truth, you love truth, you embrace truth.
Truth should be a huge part of our lives as Christians.
And if we love truth, then we're going to hate lying.
Now, look what the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 9, this is about the antichrist.
It says, "Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs
and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish," watch
this, "because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.
And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
So the Bible here is saying that the love of the truth leads people to getting saved.
It leads people to salvation.
If someone is truly on a quest for truth, if someone's truly a truth seeker or part
of the truth movement, if they're a sincere person, their path will inevitably lead them
to Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the lie.
And so those who are damned, it's because of the fact that they received not the love
of the truth.
And because they received not the love of the truth, God sends them a strong delusion
as a punishment so that they'll believe the lie, so that they'll all be damned who believe
not the truth that have pleasure and righteousness.
You know, the famous atheist Richard Dawkins wrote his most famous book called The God
Delusion.
You know, it really should be called the delusion from God, the delusion that God sent to Richard
Dawkins as a punishment for Richard Dawkins receiving not the love of the truth, God sent
him a strong delusion so that he would believe a lie so that he would be damned.
That's what is the life story of Richard Dawkins in a nutshell.
And here's the thing about that.
Richard Dawkins has said, "Well, if there really is a God, he's a really deceptive God,
you know, making us seem like he doesn't exist or making us see."
And here's the thing about that, there's a kernel of truth in what Richard Dawkins is
saying there, because it's true that God has sent Richard Dawkins and people like him a
delusion.
So in that sense, he's a little bit right there of, "Well, God tricked me."
Yeah, because you're a rotten person, you receive not the love of the truth so that
you could be saved, and so God has sent you a strong delusion so that you would believe
something that is ridiculous, so that you'd believe something that's crazy.
I mean, it's crazy to think that this world came from nothing, that this universe came
from nothing, that life could begin from nothing, that animals could originate from nothing.
It's bizarre, but yet we have seemingly intelligent, educated people who believe that.
Many of them are just ignorant, and look, don't get this idea that everybody who is
messed up into the Big Bang and evolution and thinking that there's no God, don't get
to think that they're all reprobates, because a lot of them, you know, they're going to
school and they're being trained like this.
They're going to college and being trained like this, and you know what?
Many of them, when they hear the gospel, will receive the truth, they'll receive the love
of the truth and be saved, but obviously someone like Richard Dawkins, you know, this is somebody
who's a reprobate, who's under a strong delusion, and so forth, and then he's trying to just
corrupt as many other innocent people as he can and teach them this atheistic garbage.
It doesn't make sense scientifically.
You can call it science all you want, but trying to explain the origin of the universe
or the origin of life on this planet is a fool's errand from a scientific perspective
because you're never going to be able to do it with science, because it's something that
came from a divine act, and it's outside the scope of science.
It's outside the limitations of science.
Science has its limitations.
Anybody who actually knows science understands that those limitations exist.
And so there's a strong delusion being sent causing people to believe a lie, and it's
punishing them for what?
What did they do to deserve this punishment?
Because what could be a worse punishment than God sending you a strong delusion and making
you believe a lie?
They receive not the love of the truth.
So we as Christians, we that are saved, we at least to some degree have received the
love of the truth, but you know what?
We don't want to just love the truth enough to get saved and then embrace lying in our
lives.
We need to walk in truth.
John said, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."
John loved the truth.
If you read 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, he hammers the truth, the truth, the truth, it's like
his favorite word that keeps coming up over and over and over again.
And of course, we know the scripture is inspired by God.
God loves the truth.
God is hammering the truth in 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John.
And so we need to, as 1 Corinthians chapter 13 says, rejoice in the truth.
Love it.
Rejoice it.
Okay, so let me ask this.
If you love the truth, if you rejoice in the truth, if you're a truth seeker, then why
do you lie so much?
Because somebody who really loves the truth isn't going to go around lying all the time.
And you know what?
Lying is a sin that we as Christians should avoid because we should hate that sin.
We should hate this.
We should be like David where we say, "I hate in a poor lying."
And by the way, when David said that, that doesn't just mean, "Oh, I just hate it when
other people do that."
It's amazing how sometimes sin looks worse on other people than it looks on us.
But you know what?
When we hate in a poor lying, let's not just hate when other people lie.
Let's also hate our own lying.
Let's hate it when we lie.
Let's hate lying so much that we repent of that and we quit doing it, okay?
And we walk in truth and tell the truth.
And obviously, you know, we know that every single person on this earth has lied.
But that doesn't mean that you just have to go around lying all the time.
And you know what?
Not everybody just goes around lying continually.
And lying is a bad sin.
And just because everybody has done it, just because I've done it, you've done it, doesn't
mean that we should just act like, "Oh, it's no big deal."
Well, the reason that it's a big deal is because it's the exact opposite of who God is.
He's the truth.
So if we love Him, then we would have to hate lying in order to really love God.