(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, so the sermon I'm going to preach this morning is not some, it's not difficult, it's not complicated, it's something that all of us probably should already know, even children should already know this, but you know, sermons like this are necessary because we need to be conscious about things and be able to reflect on our own lives and find out where we may be guilty of doing things that are wrong and just kind of be reminded about how bad certain things are. Now, we started off here in James chapter 3. James 3 does an excellent job of illustrating how much damage can be done from the things that come out of our mouth, from the things that we say. And we need to take heed to this warning because as we read down here, look down in your Bibles, I know we just read the entire chapter, but the Bible talks about in verse 3 and 4, it mentions horses and ships, it says, Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor enlisted. So it lists two things there, you know, a horse is real powerful and can want to go and do its own thing, but it's just this little bit that you put in their mouth that's going to allow you to control that horse and steer it and make it do what you want it to do. Similarly with a large ship, right, you got a big sailing vessel, you've got these massive wind gusts blowing in the sails, a lot of power and things moving forward, but it's just a really small rudder, a real small helm, you know, that's ultimately steering where all of that force, where all of that power is going to go. It just takes that small part to have a huge impact on where everything is going. Well, in like manner, the Bible says there in verse 5, even so, the tongue is a little member. The tongue is really small compared to the rest of our body, and boasteth great things, behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. And now it's using symbolism there with a fire, you think, you know, every fire starts with just some small spark, some small kindling, you know, it just takes a little bit. One strike of lightning can, you know, create massive devastation and destruction. Especially if you're familiar with any of the wildfires that go on in California and Arizona and other places. I used to live in Arizona and, you know, all it takes is a lightning strike, all it takes is a cigarette butt, all it takes is one little tiny ember from a campsite and you can have acres, hundreds of acres just destroyed, devastated, burned up as a result of that and it all starts with one small thing. This is what's being referred to with our tongues. Our tongue is a small member, our tongue is a small thing, but those sparks that you could throw out of your mouth can end up causing lots of damage, okay? And there's many ways to do this and there's many sins that we could cover that would be sins of your mouth, you could make vows and not keep them, you could, you know, slander and gossip and backbite and do many other things, I'm not going to get into all those various things. The sin I'm going to be focused on this morning is lying, just telling lies, bearing false witness actually does damage to other people and most people today I think it's very common that people kind of look at lying as not that big of a deal. It's not really a big deal, come on, everyone, and you know, even when we go out and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know, one of the first things that we do is explain to people that they're all sinners, right? That's step number one, we need to let people understand, hey, you're a sinner, why do we let them know that they're a sinner? Because God has a judgment on sin and they need a savior, right? So trying to lead people to savior, they first have to understand that there is a consequence for their sin, so that's what we start off with, so I like starting off with that and I also like to inform people that sin, not all sin is equal but at the same time all sin will have a consequence of hell, there's a hell punishment on that and what I regularly will do is I'll turn to Revelation chapter 21 verse number 8 just to get through to people the consequences of sins that they might not think are a big deal because just as me and so many other people do, I used to think, well, the only people who are going to hell are the really bad people, right? Has anyone else ever had that thought or believed that in the past? Of course, right? You know, I'm okay, I'm pretty good, you know, the rapists, the murderers, these, you know, these people that are just really bad people, you see them on the street, you know, they're going to hell but I'm not going to hell because I'm not really that bad, it's a dangerous philosophy, it's a dangerous belief system to have because that's not what the Bible says. Now, yeah, do those people deserve the death penalty or deserve the hell penalty? Yes, they do but it's not just reserved for them, right? And this is why I turned to Revelation 21, 8 because Revelation 21, 8 says, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death. So it lists off many sins there and I'll show people, you see, look, there's your murderers, right? Yeah, murderers deserve to go to hell, well, what about, how about this, what about the fearful? What do you mean the fearful? I didn't even know that was a sin, well, the Bible says but the fearful and lists off all those other things in the same sentence as murderers, what about the unbelieving? And what about, I usually point this one out to people though, is what about all liars? What about all liars? I mean, do you know anyone who's never told a lie before? Because I don't. And we can often make light of it and joke about it just because everybody's done it. And when everybody does something, if everybody's guilty of something, we have a tendency to minimize the impact and say, well, it's not really that big of a deal, right? I mean, if everybody's guilty of it, it's not really that bad, right? So, the Bible says all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth the fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So it doesn't matter if none of us think it's that big of a deal, what matters is does God think it's that big of a deal? Because according to scripture, he does. And for sins like this, sins that are very common, sins that we can all be guilty of, it's all the more necessary to remind ourselves and say, no, this really is a big deal. No, I really should be very careful not to tell lies. I don't care if my colleagues, I don't care if my friends will just blow it over and think it's not that big of a deal. Because God thinks it's a big deal. Our standard doesn't go with what does the society say is a big deal. Society doesn't dictate our rules. Society doesn't dictate how serious of a matter things are. Not for us, not for Bible believers, not for Christians, it shouldn't be that way. If you let society dictate what's right and wrong, these days, I mean, you're going to be going against scripture just about every which way you turn. Things that the Bible calls abomination are tolerated and accepted in today's society. No, we can't allow the, well, society doesn't think lying's that big of a deal, so I'm not going to worry about it. No, you better worry about it. It's a big deal. God's law, in turn, if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 19, we'll discover this real quickly. God's law very clearly states that there's, you know, penalties against lying and it's a sin to bear false witness. Obviously we saw in Revelation 21, 8 that there's the punishment of hell that's carried on liars, and people tell lies, people tell untruths, right? In the Ten Commandments, which is found in Exodus chapter 20, there's thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbors, right, so one of the Ten Commandments, right? So God thought it was necessary enough to put it there in what's known as the Ten Commandments. And then in Deuteronomy chapter 19, we're going to see here also what happens for people who do bear false witness. There's actually statutes, there was supposed to be ordinances, there was laws of man that were supposed to be created here that God specified needed to be in place in order to punish the people who would bear a false witness and would lie and say something happened when it didn't really happen. And obviously this has to do with people who would have an impact where the lie that's told would have an impact about that person being punished for doing something wrong, okay? This isn't just talking about any possible lie you could ever say in your life, but these are lies that have severe consequences. Now I'm not saying that it's okay to tell lies on any other thing, and the Bible doesn't teach that, but what I'm saying is part of the law, the law aspect would be the criminal aspect of telling a lie is where someone else might be punished as a result of your lie, okay? Verse number 16 in Deuteronomy 19, the Bible says, if a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong, then both the men between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges which shall be in those days, and the judges shall make diligent inquisition. So basically one guy says one thing, the other one says something else, this guy's saying, you know, I saw so and so do this or do that or steal this, right? And the other guy's saying, no, he's lying. I didn't do that. He's a liar. Well, they're going to go and bring it before the judges, essentially, and they're going to, the judge's job is to make diligent inquisition. So they're going to do all the research and try to find the truth of the matter. They're going to dig into it, see what evidence they could come up with, and see who's telling the truth. It says, and behold, if the witness be a false witness and have testified falsely against his brother, then shall you do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother, so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. So the consequence for bearing a false witness was whatever the punishment would have been for the person that you're lying about, that's your punishment. So if you say, I saw so and so stealing this person's ox, this person's ass, right? We use the Old Testament example. I saw this person stealing someone's animal. Well, you'd go to the law then and see, well, what would that person have to pay in order for justice to be served? And depending on what it was, maybe four times, five times, seven times, those were some of the punishments for stealing in Scripture. God said, okay, if someone's found guilty of stealing, then they have to pay back a return x times the amount of the value of that. And that's how justice works. So then if someone's bearing that false witness, say, okay, well, now you have to do that because you are going to make that person be guilty of that. Now you have to do that. And that goes all the way up to, hey, if I saw this person killing somebody, murder, well, murder is a capital crime. That means a death penalty. That means a false witness that's going to try to go forward and tell a lie about someone else guilty of a murder or some other capital crime, then you put that false witness to death. I mean, it gets that serious, right? If that was going to be the punishment for someone else, well, then that's the punishment that you face. And that's righteous and just in the eyes of the Lord. I mean, that's what the Bible says. That is righteous judgment. And that shows, that demonstrates how serious God is about this. No, look, you can't be going around and just lying about people because that could come back on your own head if you are lying. Now there's many reasons why people will lie. There's lots of different lies. Obviously, this is just one. This lie would be, I think, more intentional to get someone else in trouble. You hate somebody, you have disagreement with someone, you want to get back at them. What happens? And this happens today. This happens, you know, in many situations, right? It's unfortunate that people will go to these lengths and lie. But one of the things that comes to mind, it happens where, like a female may say that a man violated her or did something to her because she's mad at him. Now I'm not saying that happens all the time. Obviously, there's times where men violate and do things against women that are horrible and they need to be punished for that. But sometimes there'll be a situation where a person will lie about that. Now unfortunately, in our system, there's really not too much that can be done against that. I know there's crimes against that, you know, there's laws against that, but it's not like the Bible. See, here's the thing. If a man forces a woman in the Bible, that man ought to be put to death. And you know what? I say amen to that. I know that's not the laws of the land right now. And I'm not saying to take the law in our own hands. Of course, I'd never believe that. We should, you know, but the righteous government that followed the laws of the Lord would be putting men who force women to death. That would be the crime for that. But then in a similar fashion, on the other hand, a woman that would lie about something like that and try to accuse a man of that and it's not true and they're not, you know, then they ought to be put to death because that would be what you're trying to do to them. So it would work both ways. So obviously, there's reasons that people lie. One of the reasons would just be to get someone else in trouble, to get back at them, right? You want to do something to them, so you're going to lie about them to get them in trouble. Another reason to lie would be a lie to cover your own actions. I think this is probably the most common. When you ask any, you know, I ask people, well, have you ever told a lie before? 99.9% of the people will admit to telling lies before, but every once in a while you run into that one person that doesn't want to admit they've ever told a lie before. You mean to tell me you've never tried to cover up for something you've done wrong? Where someone asks you, hey, did you do that? No, I didn't do that. I mean, it's the easiest sin in the world to do. I mean, kids do that from a young age. They learn to do that. They don't have to be taught to do that, right? They just go, I don't want to get in trouble, nope, didn't do it, right? It's natural. Unfortunately, it's natural because it's part of our sin nature. That's a natural sin that happens, and we need to fight against that, and, you know, we need to be able to teach our children not to tell the lies because they are big deals. See, we can laugh about it with the children because we've all been there, we understand, we know it, but it's still not a joke, right? Like it's not a laughing matter. We need to teach our children to be truthful and to be honest, and we're going to get to this verse in a minute, but the Bible says that a righteous man hateth lies, hateth lying, hateth bearing false witness. A righteous person does not want to have anything to do with lies, so, you know, covering up your own actions, but here's part of the foolishness of that, God knows the truth. You're trying to cover up for yourself, you can't hide things from God, you can't hide what you've done from God's eyes, you can only hide it from other people. You commit a sin, you do something wrong, you commit transgression, you can't hide anything from God. So the foolishness of just trying to cover things up is that God already knows, and oftentimes one of the problems with trying to cover things up is that people won't be very repentant for what they've done if they want to lie and not even admit that they've done wrong, right? One of the first steps of repentance, of just trying to get right, is admitting you've done wrong. I mean, the first step when we go out even just preaching the gospel to people is admit that you're a sinner, admit you've done wrong. I mean, people who can't admit that, you're going to have a hard time finding forgiveness. You have to be able to admit that, you have to be able to admit you've done wrong, not trying to cover up yourself, just being able to be honest and say, I've done wrong. I've done wrong, I'm sorry, and then, you know, where the Bible teaches that you're going to reap what you sow, I just preached on that last week, well, the person who is willing to admit it and just, you know, be done with it, God's going to show you mercy so you don't, you know, so things don't have to be quite as bad even though you have done wrong, you're compounding the problem the more lies that you tell to try to cover up for things you've done, just don't lie about it, get it out of the way, you know, admit it and move forward, right, and get right. Another reason why people lie, we lie to fit in or be accepted. This happens more frequently with children than it does with adults, but it happens with adults too, right, where people will be talking about things and you just lie to go along, maybe it's something you don't believe at all, but there's a whole group of people and you don't want to look like an outcast, you don't want to look like you're weird or you're different and people will just lie to go along with it. You say, well, it's not that big of a deal or it's not really what I think, but they lie and you know what, you're being fake, you're being a hypocrite, you're not being real and what this is going to end up going to is the whole heart of the matter when it comes to lying, it has to do with your word, right. Your word really helps define who you are as a person, you've got your actions and you've got your words, right, your actions will help define who you are because that's what you're doing is who you are. Your words will also do the same thing, now you have a problem, if your words don't match up with your actions, you've got a big problem there, you've got a contradiction, right, you're going to be viewed as a hypocrite because that's what you are, if your words don't match up with your actions, you're a hypocrite. In order to have credibility, in order to have respect, in order to be able to influence people in a positive way, in the right way, your actions need to match up with your words. So in order to do that, you can't be telling lies, you have to be able to tell the truth. Now we have a big job in this life, the end goal, the end job is to lead people to Christ, that is the number one function or job of every believer, after you get saved, it's not like, hey, I'm going to heaven, now I'm just going to go and just do whatever and take a vacation and you know, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, now that you're saved, you need to go and try to help other people to get saved, help other people to avoid hell, help other people get to heaven, so this is the mission that we have ultimately for the rest of our lives, you know, God has created us unto good works to help others. Now obviously there's many ways to help people, but the best way to help someone is to help show them that, hey, you're headed towards an eternity in hell, but God loves you and God died for you and God did everything that he had to do to pay your sins for you, all you have to do is accept that free gift. That is the best thing that anyone can do for another person is to show them that and explain that to them so that the person can then receive the free gift of eternal life and just be saved forever. That's the number one thing. I said it doesn't mean you don't do anything else, it doesn't mean you don't help people in other ways, of course we do, but the number one objective is to get people to do that. Now here's the key, and this is why this is also so important and why your word is so important is that the only way a person can be saved is through faith. They have to believe. If something is not credible, they're not going to believe, right? Now I'm not saying they have to believe your words, they don't have to believe your words, they have to believe the word of God. So first and foremost, but we know that the Bible is credible, we all believe that the Bible is credible. I do, so the credibility is in the Bible, it's in the God's word, but if you're trying to help show somebody and explain that to someone, they're also going to be looking at you and judging you and determining is this someone I can trust to be giving me the truth from the Bible, right? I mean that is going to happen. You could say, but it's God's word, I know it is, but you know what? The person that you're talking to is also going to be looking at you, it matters. And what if the person that's looking to you that you're trying to show them is your child or a loved one? They know, you know, this is oftentimes, unfortunately, also why sometimes family members won't receive the gospel from another family member because they say, well I know you, I know all the things you've done and everything else, and they have this feeling, they think, well how could you tell me about the scripture, right? Even with a parent and a child, right? Because the parents raised their children, so for a child that's saved to then save their parent, you know, well who, you know, the parent could be like, well who are you to teach me, I taught you your whole life, right? Now we could know and say, well that's not the right attitude, they shouldn't think that way, but many people do, it's a fact of life, and people will do that. We need to make sure that we can have the best testimony so that people can look at you and say, okay, well first of all I can see that your words and your actions are lining up. You're not just saying one thing and doing another because nobody wants to listen to a hypocrite. So you've got to try to make those two match, you're going to want to make sure that that's right. And if you're someone who's known to tell lies, no one's going to want to believe you. Why would you? I mean, do you believe liars? When you have someone that lies to you about something, how hard is it to regain that trust? It's really hard. And this is the thing, telling a lie is really easy, but the amount of damage that comes from easily just telling a lie is significant, it's very great. You have to work hard to build up your name, to build up your testimony, to build up credibility, to do things honest. People don't just see, oh well you said this and did this one time, well great, now I'm just going to believe you on everything. That's not the way it works. People need to see the pattern, people need to see it happening over and over, it needs consistency, it needs to be regular before people even start to trust and look at things that way. We need to make sure we're doing our best to reach the people, now obviously the person on the street, they don't know your whole history, they don't know anything like that. We still preach the gospel to them because it is the power of God and some people will still listen to you, you know, anyways. But the people who are close to you especially, you need to have that good testimony and we all are close to different people and you know there's some people that won't give anyone the time of day at their doorstep because they just don't like that you came to the door. But if that person is a family member or a friend of yours or something else, then maybe they will listen to you, right. We need to try to reach people at all possibilities. So some people will lie to fit in, and then other people will lie to make themselves look better or smarter to other people. Turn your foot to 1 John chapter 1, right near the end of the Bible, 1 John chapter number 1. People lie about the things they know, people lie about whatever, just to make themselves look better, right, or they'll lie about, oh, I've never done anything like that, I've always been really good or I've, you know, because they want to look good in people's eyes. But again, that's foolishness and again, you know, once people find out the truth, then they're not going to want to believe anything that you say. And as a side note, I'll just mention this, especially when it comes to preaching the gospel to people, okay. Obviously we're going forth trying to preach the truth to everybody. That's, I mean, that's the goal, right, we're preaching the truth. The problem comes in is when you may be teaching something that's true, but using supporting scripture that that scripture is not talking about. But you're making it look like it is to someone else and people will say, try to justify the means and say, well, what I'm teaching is true even though, but I like the way this verse says this, but that verse is not saying that like in context. Don't do that. Because you might get that person to believe you at the moment, but then if they go back and look at it or someone else talks to them and be like, that's not what that verse means at all, then everything you said to that person is going to fall in question where you might have been telling them the truth, just all the concepts, everything was basically true, you just used bad supporting evidence, your whole testimony is shot. So make sure when you're trying to show people stuff from the Bible that contextually it actually supports what you're talking about. Because things that are true, you don't have to rely on one verse for. You will have other options to choose from in scripture to support what you believe. And if you can't do that, then check what you believe, right? If you have nothing but one verse in the whole Bible to support something that you believe, it's time to reevaluate that. Because the truth, I mean, you should be able to find it. I'm not saying it's just going to be everywhere depending on the subject. God doesn't bring everything up all the time everywhere, obviously. But there's always going to be more than one witness in scripture to whatever it is that you believe. Some important doctrines you're going to find more something else in there to support. So I do turn to 1 John chapter 1, look at verse number 5, the Bible says, this then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. And maybe people say, oh yeah, I'm right with God. I'm living right. I'm living holy, everything else. But the really, secretly just walking in darkness, just living life of sin and everything else, but they're saying, oh yeah, I'm great. They come to church and say, oh yeah, I know the Lord, everything's great. The Bible says you lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So you're saying if you want to tell yourself, lie to yourself and say, oh, I don't have any sin. And there's people out there that do that. You might think that's, you know, who could possibly do that. There are plenty of people out there that think that they could live their life with no sin. They may not think they've never sinned, but there's people out there that think, nope, I could live my life day after day and I don't sin. You know who they're deceiving? Themselves. They ain't deceiving me. People who tell me that, I know they're lying. I know they're lying. They're lying to themselves, they're lying to me, they're lying to God. Why? Because people who think that way, they don't, they either don't read the Bible or don't care what it says because there's a lot of sins. I mean, you read the whole Bible, there are a lot of things that are sinful. The Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin. Okay, you're going to tell me that you can go an entire day without one foolish thought. I mean, foolish is, I mean, that's exactly what it is. It's just foolish. It's a silly, stupid, foolish thought. It doesn't even have to be something inherently sinful. The foolish thought itself is sinful. According to scripture, that's a sin. Along with many, many other things, obviously, we could go down the list of all the things that the Bible says are sin and the ones especially that happen internally, you're going to tell me that you don't sin, I mean, come on. You tell me you haven't sinned in a week, then, okay, if you were in a coma, I might believe you, right? I was unconscious for weeks, I didn't sin that whole week of my life, all right. But how about this? The Bible says, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him that is sin also. Because that's another thing that people don't realize. But I didn't do this and I didn't do that, but did you? There's sins of commission, means you committed something, a transgression against the law. And then there's sins of omission, which means you didn't do, you left it out, you were supposed to do something, you didn't do it. And you know, like Jesus Christ was perfect, so he was able to say, I do always those things that please my Father. But look at the life of Jesus. Where do we see the downtime for Jesus? We see him ministering, walking, praying, you know, when he's not teaching, when he's not healing, he's praying, it's like, when did the guy sleep? I don't know. I mean, he had to have used any human vessel, but he maximized his time and did always those things that pleased the Lord. So unless you can say, I am just like Jesus, then you can't say that you are without sin. You're deceiving yourself. You're fooling yourself. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar. So you saying you haven't sinned, you're making God a liar. And his word is not in us. Right? Because God said that everybody sinned. God's the one who says that you're sinned. You start saying things, foolish things like that, now you're making God a liar. That's a big deal. One other reason, and you know what, there's many reasons why people will lie. I kind of came up with some things just that popped in my head of what are common reasons. This is the last one I have here, is that lying to help someone else, because sometimes we lied to avoid consequences ourselves. Sometimes we lie to get other people in trouble, but sometimes we lie to cover for someone else. Right? Well, I don't want that person to get in trouble, so I'm going to lie and say, oh, yeah, they did that. Right? You're on the job and someone didn't do what they're supposed to do, and then the boss comes asking, hey, did so-and-so do this? And you're like, yep, he did that. Look, that's a lie. You may think it's noble and virtuous and you're trying to help somebody out. Be careful, because when you bear that false witness, you know who that's going to hurt? That's going to hurt you. That's going to hurt your credibility, your faithfulness, your reliability. Now if the boss finds that out, you know what he's going to be saying? I can't trust this person. I asked him a direct question and he was not able to answer me with the truth. They're not going to be able to depend on you or rely on you, and that's going to cause problems for you. And you know what? It's not your fault that so-and-so didn't do what they were supposed to do. If they would have done that, they wouldn't put you in that position. You say, but that's my friend. You know what? Friends don't just go around trying to put burdens on you because of their failings. Friends don't do that. Friends are there to help. Not to get you in trouble and get you to tell lies. Look, if you've got a friend that's telling you to tell lies, they're not a good friend. Not a good friend. The Bible says a lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering mouth worketh through it. In fact, why don't you turn to Proverbs chapter 12. That was from Proverbs 26, by the way. Friends are always asking you to cover for them. They're not true friends. They're using you. And they don't really care about you. They care about them. They care about themselves. And you don't need friends like that. Because those are the friends that use you. Not only is your reputation on the line when someone asks you to do that, but they're causing you to sin against other people. I do turn to Proverbs chapter 12, look at verse number 22, the Bible says, lying lips are abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight. So think about that, when someone asks you to lie for them, well, the Bible says lying lips are abomination to the Lord. That means God hates it. That's what abomination means. If something's held in God's eyes as abominable, that God has hatred, disgust, abhors that. Lying lips are abomination. Do you want to just be in God's eyes just abominable by your telling lies for somebody else? No. Flip over to chapter 13, verse number 5. Chapter 13, Proverbs, verse number 5, a righteous man hateth lying, but a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame. We ought to hate lying and hate telling lies to a point where if someone asks you to lie, you'd be like, no, I'm not going to do that. I hate lying. I'm not a liar. Now, it doesn't mean you have to go intentionally and like tell on people, right? You don't have to be a tattletale, but don't lie. Don't lie. Make sure you tell, you could make a covenant with yourself saying, I am not going to tell lies. I'm going to be known as someone who's honest, someone with integrity, someone who tells the truth. That way, if people can say, well, you know, well, Peter said this, I know I could trust that. I mean, if Peter said it, I know it's true. That's the type of reputation you want to have where everyone could just know, no, no, no. They've been in this situation before. They always tell the truth. That's where you want to be. And you know, God puts a high priority on his word. Why? Because he expects you to believe it. Because it costs you your salvation. So he puts a high priority on maintaining and preserving his word, which, by the way, again, maybe if you don't know, we're a King James Bible believing only church here. For the English language, we believe the King James Bible because we believe this is preserved word of God, that God has preserved it, that we don't have to doubt, there's no confusion in God's word. Does the Bible really say this? Did Jesus really say that? Does the law really say that? I don't know. Is this true? Well, I don't know. Maybe man screwed it up. No, God's responsibility was to preserve that word because he expects you to believe in the word in order to be saved. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And if you don't have a word of God or it's not reliable and you say, I don't know, can I trust this, then how are you going to put your faith in something that's just not even trustworthy? You can't do it. And God wouldn't expect you to do that either. Well, just believe something. Yeah, there's all kinds of holes and errors and problems here, but just believe it anyways. No. Look, God put a high standard on maintaining his word so much that Revelation 22, last chapter of the Bible, puts a curse on anyone who's going to change the word of God. If you're going to add to or remove from the word of God, you know what he's going to do? Add the plagues unto you that are written in the book and remove your name out of the book of life. So God's like, yeah, don't mess with my word. Don't corrupt my word. And it's been going on for a long time. The Bible says we're not as many which corrupt the word of God, right? But in sincerity, in truth, they preach the word of God, right? We need to be preaching the word of God as well in truth, in sincerity, in righteousness. A righteous man hateth lying. Flip back to Proverbs chapter 6. I just brought this up recently, Proverbs chapter 6, so I'm not going to go too much in depth in this. But verse 16, the Bible says these six things that the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him. It says six things the Lord hates and seven are an abomination unto him. It uses the word six and seven there because lying is mentioned twice. So there's six things, ultimately, even though seven things are listed, there's six things, six unique things, right? What does he say? A proud look, a lying tongue, so there's one reference to lying. And hands that shed innocent blood, and heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift to running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, there's your second reference to lying, and he that soweth discord among brethren. The Bible says that all these things are abomination unto the Lord. Lying is mentioned twice. Hands that shed innocent blood is mentioned once, that's pretty serious, right? I think we'd all agree about that. Innocent blood. Didn't do anything wrong. A child, someone who just didn't do anything wrong, and now the hands shed that blood and kill that person. That's wicked as hell. That's abominable. Someone can agree with that. Well, you know what? God mentioned twice in the same sentence as that, lying, bearing false witness. We ought to take it that serious. It's a big deal. Jump down to verse number 20, and the Bible says, my son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee. When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee. When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life. And I'm quoting these verses here for the children especially. Children, pay attention, okay? Your parents have rules for you. And I would be willing to bet that every parent in this room who has children has a rule of their children not to tell lies. Okay? It's for your benefit. It's for your good. Don't be someone who tells lies. Keep the instruction that your parents give you. They're giving them to you for good reason. It's supposed to be a light to help lighten the right path for you to take. You start telling lies. You start going down that path. It's going to lead you into more and more problems in your life. Things will be worse and worse and worse off for you. You continue that pattern and keep telling lies. You're not going to like the results. So your parents are trying to look out for you. God is looking out for us, which is why he brings up this concept of telling lies and how much he hates it over and over and over again. So that we can let it sink into our heads as easy as it may be. And you might think no one will ever find out. No one will ever tell the truth. You think you could get away with it. God is warning you about how bad it really is. And don't think for a second, if you do get away with telling a lie, say no one knows about it. It's just me. Don't think for a second that God is going to let you get away with that. As I preached last week, 1 Timothy chapter 6, the Bible says, be not deceived. God is not mocked. You think you could get away with telling lies that God hates and think God's just going to let himself be mocked at you and thinking, ha ha, I got away with it. No one knows anything about this. Nothing bad happened to me. Everything's great. No. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The things that you do, you will reap. You will pay for that. You throw out that little seed of telling a lie, it's going to come back much greater once that seed is sown and it brings back fruit, it's going to be really bad. Don't get involved in that. Well think about this too. There's, turn if you would, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, last place we'll have you turn. We're almost done. What did Jesus say about himself? John 14 verse 6, Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. So what did Jesus say? He said, I am the truth. So in order for something to be true, you can't have any lies in it, right? He is the truth. He is pure, the truth. Jesus is the truth. Well if Jesus is the truth, then where do lies come in? Well Jesus also said in John 8 44, ye are of your father the devil and the lust of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own for he is a liar and the father of it. The devil is the father of all lies. So you know what you do when you're telling lies? You're following the devil. If you're following Jesus, Jesus is the truth. You want to follow Jesus, tell the truth. You want to tell lies? You're following the devil. Because you know what? There is no truth. Jesus is all truth, 100% truth. The devil has zero truth, zero percent, all lies. You're telling lies, you're following the devil. Second Corinthians chapter 1, as I mentioned before, you know, the things that you say, the things that you do define who you are. This is why it's so important. Your testimony. Who you are. Your life. Your existence on this planet is all wrapped up in what you do and what you say. Make the things you say be real. Make the things you say be true. Make the things you say matter because they're true. So that people can't be going, oh, yeah, they're just known as a liar. I mean, then your existence here would have been for nothing if people can't believe a word that you say because you're a liar. How sad. What a sad existence. Second Corinthians chapter 1, verse number 17, the Bible says, when I, therefore, was thus minded, did I use lightness or the things that I purpose? Do I purpose according to the flesh that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay? You're saying with me there should be yes, yes, yes, no, no, you know, it's kind of this yes and no, back and forth, not getting a straight answer, right? Sometimes I'll say yes, sometimes no. He says, but as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. It wasn't yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him, amen, and in the glory of God by us. He's saying it's all yes with God, it's all truth, it's all amen, it's all yes, the word of God stands sure and is true. It's not, well, this is kind of true and this is kind of not, it's not this wishy-washy, on-off type of thing, it's yes, yes. We walk in truth, we walk in righteousness, we walk in light. Lies bring darkness. Need to walk in light. And you know, like I said, this isn't complicated, everyone's like, you know what, I already knew that, Pastor Berzins. I hope so. I hope you already knew that. We all should have already knew that. But think about your own life. Think about your day-to-day. Think about times where you know what, I failed that, I have my own infractions, I've been slipping up, and you know what, I've been trying to be a little bit too accepted by the people around me, so I've been guilty now of telling lies, I wasn't really intending on doing it, I've been doing it, but you know what, change it now. You can't change what's done in the past, that's over. You can change what you do from here on forward. And if you've already tarnished and ruined a reputation, you gotta work real hard to build that back up. You're still alive, you know, it doesn't mean that you can't ever try to regain some testimony. Try building it back up. Make the change. And if you have a good testimony, don't blow it, don't ruin it, please. You've worked hard to get to this point, it's easy to just destroy it all in an instant. It's so easy. Don't let that ruin your testimony. Tell the truth. We should exalt the truth, we love the truth. As much as you love Jesus Christ, you love the truth. And I don't know about you, I try to instill that in my children as much as possible, obviously nobody's perfect, you know, kids are gonna end up telling lies, but we don't excuse that. You know, there's punishments in my house for telling lies that are above other punishments. Because it's so vital that our children can be brought up to, especially in a world full of lies, in a world full of craziness and perversion and everything else, you need to learn how to tell the truth. And have integrity. And regardless of the consequences, you tell the truth. You say what's right. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your words, for the instruction, for the lamp to our feet, God I pray that you would please help us to be mindful of these scriptures when the temptation comes along for whatever reason there may be to try to tell a lie, dear Lord, please bring these scriptures to remembrance, help us remember how abominable they are to you, that telling a lie is to you, dear Lord, that we would take a second thought and decide not to tell that lie and instead just stand on the truth, dear Lord, so we wouldn't hurt our testimony. God, we love you, we thank you for all that you do for us, it's in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.