Welcome to Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell. Pastor Steve studies and explains books of the Bible chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in order to apply the eternal truths found there. He does this so thoroughly that it's like we're actually there, watching these people live out their faith. We're glad to have you join us as we travel together through the pages of the Bible.

Luke chapter 20. What I'm going to do today is simply bring out a simple principle from verses 1 through 8. I'm not going to exposit 1 through 8. I'm going to just take the principle and then I'm going to teach topically on the subject. My subject today is the truth about lying.

The truth about lying. It's obvious, isn't it, that our society is becoming a very dishonest society. Lying is everywhere. Lying is becoming normal. And we're like that frog in the kettle, you know, where they say you can, well, I've watched this happen, actually. I was a biology major.

You can put some poor frog in this cool water and then bring it up. And if you bring the temperature of that water up slowly enough, the frog, which is a cold-blooded reptile, doesn't sense the temperature change. And you can literally boil a frog to death and it'll never jump out of the pot.

So when things happen slowly enough around us, that we become transformed by our culture without even knowing we're being changed by the culture around us. And so as the culture around us becomes increasingly a dishonest culture, a culture of lying, we don't sense the difference, and we also can imbibe the spirit of lying, and Christians can bring it right into their lives.

Now I say this because in recent weeks we've had several counseling situations where people who are long-time Christians, I don't mean some new person who just doesn't know any better, but people who've been for decades maybe Christians, will lie. And be with all aggression persuading us of something, while underneath it all, they know perfectly well that what they're saying is a lie.

And then it comes out and it's kind of like, well... And their lack of conscience and their ability to lie boldly is breathtaking. And so I want to talk to you today. I'm not going to scold you. What I want to do is look at this whole subject of lying and to see what's the problem with lying.

So that hopefully we'll make a deep decision that says, you know, lying isn't a technique for me. As a Christian, lying isn't a tool, isn't a way of handling things that is ever appropriate for me to do. So I'm just hoping we'll have a fresh commitment that our lips will speak truth.

That our lips, which are given to the Holy Spirit and given as an instrument of the Lord for life and for ministry for others, that our lips... Are sacred and holy and not a place that lies ought to come out of. So let's have a look at this and see what we see.

Father, may the power of the Holy Spirit open your word. I ask you to feed us. We ask you to give us faith and understanding. I ask for grace, Lord, that I would hear and understand myself afresh today. In Jesus' name, amen.

Chapter 20 of Luke, verse 1. On one of the days, while he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted him. And they spoke, saying to him, Tell us by what authority you are doing these things, or who is the one who gave you this authority?

Jesus answered and said to them, I will also ask you a question, and you tell me. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Meaning, of course, the baptism of John the Baptist.

They reasoned among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he'll say, Why did you not believe him? But if we say from men, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet. So they answered that they did not know where it came from.

And Jesus said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Now, here's the situation. This is Tuesday of the final week of the Lord's earthly ministry. Tuesday. Friday he'll be crucified. Saturday he'll be in the grave. And Sunday morning early he rises again resurrected.

But this is Tuesday. Sunday is a day we all know well. It was Palm Sunday. Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey. He came down the ascent of the Mount of Olives. It slants across the slope of the Mount of Olives. Great crowds behind Him singing. Portions of Psalm 118, which was a song that they sang as they would go up to the temple.

And there's particular verses that speak of Messiah. And they sang those and cried them out to the Lord as He came. Some ran forward and took their outer cloaks and laid them in the road like they were welcoming a king into their city.

A great throng came out of the city itself and rushed up the road to meet Him, cutting palm branches from the nearby trees as they passed and laying them on the road. Again, a symbol of welcoming a king into their city. They have great hopes that Jesus, when He arrives, is going to say, I'm the Messiah, and begin to round up the troops, and just like Moses, lead them free of the bondage to Rome.

Great expectation, a lot of religious fervor. Two million people are in the city by about now to celebrate Passover. This is one wild moment. Hundreds, probably thousands, are welcoming Jesus. He's come in on Tuesday. He went right into the temple, and all he did, they were hoping he'd make an announcement, all he did was look around, just check things out.

Which undoubtedly meant saw all those tables that were changing money and all the animal cages of things being sold to sacrifice on the altar. Didn't say anything at that point, just turned around and went back to Bethany and spent the night with his disciples in a home there.

Next morning, he comes out, curses a fig tree on the way. Hmm. I explained that in there, too. Curses a fig tree on the way. Now he goes in and he drives those money changers and those sellers out of the temple, saying, this is my father, you've turned my father's house into a marketplace, and it's to be a house of prayer.

So he really offends the religious leaders. Only in the last few years have they brought those sellers into the temple. They used to be out on the streets so that people would have something to sacrifice. Now Caiaphas and Annas, the high priests, have brought these things into the Temple Mount so they can charge a toll on the sellers.

You pay a booth price, I imagine. So they're making money off of this. Jesus has just driven it out. They're furious. Tuesday, they get in his face. He's preaching in that Temple Mount. It's a huge stone area. Thousands of people listening to him, and they, in front of everybody, confront him and say, by what authority do you do these things?

We're the high priest. Who are you? How dare you challenge us like this? Right to his face. So he, in front of everybody, says, let me ask you a question.

Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Was it God-ordained? Was he a true prophet calling Israel to repentance? Or was he just a wild-eyed fanatic who was grumpy and did this on his own?

Well, they said, just a moment. And they huddle up. They go back and huddle up. And in the discussion they say, if we say it was from God, then he's going to say then, why didn't you repent? And if we say it was just a grumpy old desert guy, the people would stone us because they're sure he's a prophet.

So what they did was to lie. What they did was to lie. The truth was they knew that John the Baptist was a prophet sent from God, and the truth was also they didn't care. Isn't that interesting? They knew he was a prophet, and they didn't care because they didn't like what he said.

So they lied. They handled the situation by lying. That is very human and normal. That's something we do a lot. We don't think of it necessarily as lying. We think of it as good leadership style. We think of it as... Oh, hey, I'm not kidding. You'd be surprised how many leaders...

I mean, I sit and listen to Christian leaders discuss what we're going to tell the people. And no one ever says, well, why don't we just tell them the truth? No, if we tell them this, they'll do this. And if we tell them this, we'll do this.

And the whole process is how do you manipulate the people? It's the way it's done. People do it in their marriages. People do it with their children. People do it with work. People do it to sell and buy. Lying is a constant part of the process.

Today I want to look at, I'm going to give you pretty straightforward. We're going to look at what is lying. We're going to ask why do we lie? How do we lie? I want to show you the process, what's called the seven degrees of descent into the spirit of lying.

And then, of course, we do have something positive to say. We are going to look at why should I refuse to lie and what do I need to tell the truth? How will God empower me to tell the truth?

First of all, definition of lying. Lying is simply this, in my opinion. It's my definition. It's controlling people by deceiving them. Ultimately, lying is a way of controlling the situation.

You are reaching into people's brains and giving them false data so that you control them, just like a person controlling a little electronic car or something. You are controlling their brains so that they will do or react a certain way that you want to. It's a form of control. Manipulating people to get them to do what you want them to do.

Now, why do we lie? Well... Sometimes to protect ourselves. That's a common reason. Protect ourselves because we're afraid or sometimes it's because we've sinned and we want to protect ourselves from being discovered.

So we protect ourselves. We cover our sin. We hide what we've done from others or those who could punish us. We lie to steal. Business uses lying a lot. This is the real price.

And if I can get you to believe that this is the price, then I've just made that much more money. Lying is used all the time. Or I tell you we will have this kind of guarantee, and you bet you we'll fix that.

If there's any problem, just don't worry. I've manipulated your brains so that you'll buy what I want you to buy, and I've lied as I needed to do so because I wanted the money. I controlled you through my lying.

And then finally, probably the worst level of it is I can lie to injure or kill people. The Bible speaks of not bearing false witness, testifying against someone, but you and I can literally get someone killed or hurt by lies we tell about them, infuriating people or getting them sentenced in court.

How do we lie? Well, there's numbers of ways. One, we just simply tell something that's not true. We invent the whole thing. We tell an entirely fabricated truth and plant it in somebody's mind.

Sometimes we tell part of the truth, but leave out elements. Or we add elements to create a false impression. And so it's a mixture. It partly comforts us, maybe. Or it makes it all the more credible.

There's a good deal of truth in what I just told you, but I minimized or I exaggerated. Isn't exaggeration a hard thing to avoid? When somebody asks you what happened or what was the story, don't you always want to add about four things to it?

How much weight did you lose? You want to take an extra five off? Whatever it is, whether it's minimizing or exaggerating, we tend to have a hard time just telling the truth. We always want to create an impression that's better than it actually was.

We're lying. We can lie without words, you know. It doesn't take words to lie. Just the simple fact that when you hear someone coming into the room, you change your behavior.

What you're telling them is, I was doing this before you came in. The fact is, you weren't. You were doing something else before they came in. But now that you've changed your behavior, you haven't said a word, but you have deceived them.

You've deceived them. You've told them, this is what I was doing before you came. And I was thinking, as I went through this thing, I think, I don't think I lie much.

And boy, the Lord showed me some of this. And I thought, oh, yeah, sure. Our hearts, our human hearts are deceitfully wicked, and who can know them?

Anybody who thinks you don't have this, someday along the line, the Lord will show you that you, in spirit, have violated all the Ten Commandments. You don't have to do it physically, but in spirit, your little heart has the capacity to violate them all.

And under enough pressure, you'd probably do it physically. God knows our hearts. I have one more here. We can choose to not carry out what was promised.

I can make you a promise in good faith. But then when it comes time for me to perform on my promise, I decide not to. Well, I see I didn't realize what would happen or the circumstances. I thought it would be different.

And so now I retroactively turn my original promise into a lie. By not keeping my covenant. One of the loveliest words about God is that He is faithful.

It means specifically this, that God always keeps his promises. It could be a thousand years later, and he will do what he said he would do. To every generation, he says to a thousand generations, he keeps his covenant with those who love him.

He's faithful. His word is faithful. So there's lots of ways we lie. There's reasons we lie.

Let me take you now. I came across this article. It's in a magazine called World Magazine. It's a Christian sort of time magazine thing. And I don't know who the author is. It's Jay Budziewski. I wouldn't lie to you about that.

And he says it's seven degrees on the downward staircase of honesty. This is not long. I'm not going to wear you out. But it's very insightful. I've never had anyone explain this process of lying like this man does. I never saw what he said here.

Listen to this. He said there are seven degrees of descent on the downward staircase of honesty. Not all of us are at the bottom, but most of us are at a lower stair than we admit. We often deceive ourselves.

We say, I really don't have too much of a problem with this. But he's saying we are probably, many of us, a stair or so down, lower than we're willing to admit. First and topmost stair is simply sin.

The greater our trespasses, the more we have to lie about. We lie about money, sex, and our children because we sin about money, sex, and our children. So it's just the simple thing.

When I sin, I've got to lie to cover it. You can't say, yeah, I sinned. I mean, that would be confession. So I sin and then have to lie and deceive you so that you don't discover my sin.

Very simple, ancient process. The second stair is self-protection. He says lies are weaklings. They need bodyguards. Even the smallest prevarication needs a ring of perjuries to keep from being seen.

But each new lie needs its own protective ring. Pretty soon the liar is smothered in layers of mendacity, as numerous as onion shells, as thick as flannel blankets. I tell a lie to protect myself, to protect me from being discovered.

But then you ask a question. Oops, now I have to lie to cover that, so you discover that I just lied to you. And now I've told another lie. And lie tends to lead on to lie. And I get myself caught in a whole web of things.

And it becomes very tiring because I have to remember what I told you with regard to all these things because it isn't the truth. So I have to keep a careful mental register of what I said lest I expose myself as a liar.

The third is habituation. We make habits of everything. It's part of our nature. Courage and magnanimity become habits, and so does the chewing of gum. No kidding.

In time, lying too becomes a habit. After you have lied for a while for need. Now listen to this. This is really insightful. After you have lied a while for need, you begin to lie without need.

It becomes second nature. You hardly notice you do it. Asked why, you can give no reason. You have crossed the border between lying and being a liar. Isn't that interesting?

There's a point, something happens in all of this that leads us down a staircase. And something begins to corrupt the heart. Corrupt you. You become part of the lie in time.

Next one down. Underneath the previous stare is self-deception. For beyond a certain point, a person starts losing track of truth.

Your heart cannot bear to believe that you lie as hugely as you do. So to relieve the rubbing, itching, prickling needles of remorse, you half believe your own lies.

After a while, you're lying so much, it's just really embarrassing, and you're ashamed of yourself. And so, in order to handle it, I mean, course, you could confess it and stop it, but no. In order to handle it, you say, I know what, I'll believe my lie.

And so you join in and you become deeply committed to your lie. Though you knew at the time you started it is a lie, now you begin to believe your own lie to comfort the aching conscience inside.

It's the truth. I believe it too. Now you are being drawn in to the confusion that has started.

Rationalization follows next in order. As your grasp on the truth continues to weaken, you come to blame its weakness on truth itself.

It's so slippery, so elusive. Who can hold it? It changes shape, moves around, just won't sit still. Not fair at all of it. But everything is shades of gray anyway.

How silly to believe in absolutes. Truth is what we let each other get away with, that's all.

Now, because truth, I have so undermined it, so lived in this confusion and this lying, I have to begin to attack the concept of truth.

I mean, after all, there is no truth really, is there? And so I begin

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription with proper punctuation, capitalization, and natural paragraphs:

Believe that you would tell such a whopper. Therefore, you have a motive to make every lie a whopper. This technique, called the big lie, after a remark in Hitler's Mein Kampf. Hitler knew this and used this. This was his term. It's not a monopoly of totalitarian dictators or even of politicians. Probably no one uses it in public life before he's practiced it in private.

Our American variation on the big lie works by numbers instead of size. If you lie about everything, no matter how small, nobody can believe that you would tell so many lies. The whistleblowers exhaust themselves trying to keep up with you. And eventually they've blown their whistles so many times that people think they must be the liars.

By the time a few of your lies are found out, the virtue of honesty has become so discredited that no one cares whether you're lying or not. There's a corrosive influence when you live with a liar. The pressure is so exhausting that after a while you say, "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care." He's telling the truth or not. Because you emotionally have to pull back because, and I'll get into it in a minute, it's tremendously exhausting to work and to live with lies.

You're not built to live with lies. They're abnormal to you and it will actually make you sick. The seventh and bottom most stare is that morality turns upside down. Why does this happen? Because the moment lying is accepted instead of condemned, it has to be required. If it is just another way to win, then in refusing to lie for the cause or the company, you aren't doing your job.

Now, we'll fire you if you won't lie. Now, if you're really loyal to me, of course you'll lie. Why wouldn't you lie? Why'd you tell him the truth? You ever been scolded for telling the truth? You were disloyal. What's the matter with you? Would you love me? If you loved me, you'd lie.

Now you are promoting a demonic spirit and are furious when someone won't express that demonic spirit through their lips. The corruption has taken its toll and turned everything upside down. Let me just look at those steps that he just said. First, we just simply lie to cover our sin and we're involved in self-protection. We need more lies.

But the third step is particularly meaningful to me. It says it becomes a habit. Remember? I begin to lie without need. I begin to lie and I can't even tell you why I lied. Would you turn with me to Luke chapter 8? I mean, pardon me, John chapter 8. We need to see what's beneath this.

John chapter 8, and I'm starting about verse 42. Jesus is in dialogue with those same sorts of religious leaders. John 8, verse 42. Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me." For I proceeded forth and have come from God. For I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me.

Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It's because you cannot hear my word. There's something deaf in them. They cannot hear truth. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth. Because there is no truth in him.

Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. There is behind all lies a spiritual basis, just as there is behind all truth a spiritual basis. All truth is from God. God never lies. The Bible says God is not a man that he should lie. It's no compliment for us.

But it's a clear statement that our God never, ever, ever uses lies. He never builds anything on a lie. The devil is the father of lies. When you speak the truth of God, when you speak a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, when the Lord comes through you and ministers love and hope and life to someone through your mouth, you can feel the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Can't you? You are anointed of God and you can feel the strength and empowerment coming through your life to speak those words. Now listen to me. When you lie, you are also anointed. There is a spiritual power assisting you. Lies are not neutral things. They are not something simply crafted in your brain.

Isn't it just part of a great chess game? Lies originate in their power from their father. They are demonic in source. And I think in a minute I'll explain how the process works even more deeply. But you are expressing from your lips a demonic spirit, whether you know it or not.

Secondly, as we go to self-deception, remember he said we go on down and a person starts losing track of the truth. Your heart can't bear to believe you lie as hugely as you do, so you start believing it yourself. Now this demonic spirit, which is the confusion, God's presence always clarifies.

When the Lord speaks, things get confused, Moves away and there's a simple truth being seen. When the devil comes, there is confusion. There's agitation. Everybody is uncomfortable and feels troubled and can't tell why. Knows something's wrong and can't tell why. I'll tell you why. There's a demon there.

And the demon doesn't simply sting the people that you lie to. But he takes you right with it. And so you now become demonically confused as well. You watch people that live, some religious organizations basically are built on a lie. Some false things are, the whole religion is a lie.

And when you deal with those people, the confusion is palpable. It just drives you berserk. You can't seem to ever, it's like the OJ trial. I mean, it's this thing where you can never seem to just, nobody will ever say, yeah, that's the truth. They're always dodging and weaving and, well, you know, and you're playing a game.

But no one seems to love the truth. And inside yourself, you can just tell it's wrong. It's a spirit. It is a spirit. Rationalization is the next one. You begin to blame it and say there's really no truth itself. That spirit begins to undermine your very confidence in God's reality.

In the world He's made. That there is truth. And then there's technique. After a while you become good at this. You lie and you realize I'm really good at lying. Have you seen people who are outstanding liars? People believe them. It's like they're gifted. They are. They are.

They have given such expression to this spirit that they are now anointed by an unholy spirit to influence with a lie the way men and women of God are anointed. To influence with the truth. They have a spirit strengthening and enabling them to speak the lie. Everything of the devil is built on lies.

Then the lie begins to corrupt the people. A liar corrupts people around. He or she wears them out. They become tired. They become weary of the truth. They become cynical. They begin to think they're crazy. Have you lived with a liar? Do you know what that does to you?

After a while you think, "I must be nuts." It's like you're being driven insane. It's a demonic presence, a spirit of confusion. And then finally, if the liar gives themselves to this process and stays in it, you actually become a persecutor of the people of God.

Those who will tell the truth, you ridicule. It's just a boy scout. You hate people that tell the truth. How could you tell us? How could you have done that to me? Didn't you love me? Aren't you loyal?

And you begin to harass people that spoke the word of God. You are now a child of the devil. A tool of the devil attacking the people of God who spoke the truth. The confusion has done its work and you are corroded to your root.

This is no toy to play with. Christians never use lying. Our lips are for a sacred purpose, and lies are not to come through our lips. Now, let me give you, I want to give you some reasons why we should refuse to lie.

Let's just try to understand this. I've already said a number of them. Number one, God never builds anything on a lie. He won't build your marriage on a lie. If a lie is at the root of your marriage, something's going to crack.

He won't raise good children on a lie. He won't give you a successful business on a lie. You won't become a fine person or a success in life on a lie. Right now in America, we are moving to the place where we are so amoral that we admire good liars.

In a football game, it used to be said, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Now we laugh at that statement. That's a silly, stupid statement of bygone days when they were a bunch of Boy Scouts.

Today, we admire the player who can hold on to somebody's shorts while they're going up for a shot and not get caught. Or stand on someone's foot. Or cheat. And they're so good, they didn't get caught. That's the real guy. He's a really good liar.

I have a couple of missionaries staying in my home right now, and they're saying, "You know where we live?" A really good liar is very admired. You're shrewd. You're considered very, very clever. It wasn't a sin you did. You were simply smarter than the next guy.

And America, I think, has already moved there. I think that you're seen as quite the talent if you can cheat well. And if you're just a rule keeper, what's the matter with you? You're just a dull sort of toad.

That's where the ethic lies. But let me tell you this. Jesus never builds anything on a lie. He always digs down in your life to the truth, doesn't he? He gets right down to bedrock. He just pulls and strips the impurity and the uncleanness away till he gets right down to the truth.

And then based on the truth, he begins to build a life for you. As long as lies are there, you are simply wasting your life. You're postponing time. You're stalling because nothing real is being built. And so the years go sailing on by till you will finally let God open it up and build on truth and have something that will last.

When I lie, number two, I open myself to a spirit. I've said this already. I open myself to a spirit that wants to come in and take control of me. Number three, I allow further destruction of my character, which God is trying to bring into Christ-likeness.

Christians always seem to want to focus on power, on miracles, on all sorts of things, but we don't like focusing on character development. Who wants to talk about patience and honesty and kindness and mercy and love? Let's talk about power.

And so you have an entire breed of Christian who's in touch with all the power, but doesn't pay their rent, is cruel to their children, is immoral, addicted, even vile in their private life, but shows up at all the hot meetings and really knows what's happening. It is a tremendous disgrace.

I had a friend in seminary who did this for fun. He went through the New Testament and he measured what each passage was about. And it found that 85% of the New Testament is dedicated to character. 85% of the New Testament scriptures focus on character, perseverance, kindness, love, forgiveness, gentleness, etc.

Why do you suppose that would be true? Could it be that God's interested in your character? We'd love to do other things. And I'm not saying we don't want miracles, and we don't want healing, and we don't want the working of God.

But I want to tell you something. We don't want it at the expense of character. And if all I've done is focus on that kind of flash, and I've not let Christ-likeness be formed in me, then I'm a sounding gong and a clanging cymbal. And there is nothing eternal or really worthwhile that's taken place.

I have missed the target. God wants character formed in us. Kindness, gentleness, purity, self-control. Right now, the thing that undermines the witness of the church so badly is the character of God's people in America.

Lastly, my lips are holy and dedicated to the service of the Lord. I don't know how to say this or quite explain this, but let me try. Your body is sacred. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And your lips, your mouth, above anything else in your body, is the source through which God ministers life to other people.

Salvation, healing, comfort, love, all flow through your lips. The Bible says there is life and death in the power of the tongue. And in your tongue, it is especially true. Your lips are God's lips. James says, "There ought not to be so that out of one source comes bitter water and sweet." Out of one tongue, out of one mouth, ought not to come lies and truth.

Out of our mouth ought only to come the truth of God. It's impure, it's unclean for anything else to flow out of our lips. Remember that your mouth is His mouth now. Your lips are His lips. They are dedicated to the Lord and to the service of the Lord.

And only His truth may come through those lips. Now, what do I need then, Steve? Alright, I'm convinced. What kind of things do I need? Here are some things that I believe we need to tell the truth. Because it's a challenge. It takes great courage to tell the truth.

Number one, we need to have a solid belief in reality. Now this sounds strange, but here's what I mean. You and I need to believe that there is truth and God has given us the power to know it. That there is solid truth. That there are reality and there's falsehood.

Our society has been for hundreds of years now being undermined in our commitment to the understanding of reality and truth. You go back 150 years, the philosophers were discussing things like this. Can we even know if we exist? Is this world even here? Maybe it's all a figment of my imagination. Maybe you're a figment of my imagination.

Have you heard names like Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes? Rene Descartes spent his whole time trying to figure out whether or not, indeed, he existed. Because he was sure you didn't, and he wasn't even sure he did. Is there any reality at all? Maybe I'm all part of somebody else's dream. Maybe you're just a dream.

If a tree falls in the forest, will it make any noise if no one's there to hear it? This is the great philosophers' question. Descartes finally came up with a solution. That's wonderful. What a brilliant, brilliant breakthrough. He said, "I think, therefore I am." If I'm asking the question, if I exist, somebody must exist. And it's me.

That's his conclusion. What they have done is so undermined, they've undermined the whole thing until you're literally living in an insanity. Does the world exist? Do you exist? Do I exist?

And this has been just kept going for the last 150 to 200 years. And you and I are living in a society where nobody's sure what truth is. In fact, well, it may be true for you, but it's not true for me. As though truth was just some kind of your taste for a thing.

We have undermined. You're living in it. You're surrounded. You're the frog in the kettle. The world is doing this junk. Let me tell you something. God created this universe. He made it real and he said it is good. There is a universe. There is truth. And God made you and your senses.

And he designed them for this universe he had made. And though we may not perfectly perceive it, you do accurately perceive it. He has given you the equipment to interact with the reality He has made. There is a universe, there's truth, there's beauty, there's things which are ugly, there's things which are vile, and there's things which are wonderful.

They're real. You and I have to be committed to the fact that there is eternal truth and there is a sound reality that God has made. Secondly, we must have faith in God. Remember I said that the liar is a controller. When I lie, I'm controlling you. I'm messing with your brains.

Making you do something, respond a certain way that I want or I feel I need. A person who is not going to lie must have faith in God. In fact, when you feel like lying next time, when the thought comes, stop one second and say, "No," instead of lying, I am right now going to tell the truth, believing that God will protect me.

I will not protect myself with lies, but I will believe that God will miraculously protect me. I will not promote myself with lies, but I will believe that God will promote me. It's a step of faith. It's a walk of faith. It's a daring thing to do.

You may get fired for this. You may get fired for this. And what would happen if you did get fired? Well, you'd have to believe that God would get you a job. That God would make another way. That God would provide for you other ways.

Or I could tell story after story of watching men and women who've done this. Who've taken that courageous step and refused to lie. And even been fired from high, huge salary positions. Only to have God miraculously exalt them even higher.

As they just stepped out in faith and lost everything, apparently. You have to believe, to tell the truth, you have to believe that God is your support and strength.

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Ecame futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. Asking if they indeed existed, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for a stinking little idol that they had carved.

Putting it in my own words. Verse 24. God, therefore, gave them over. That phrase, "God gave them over." There is a point at which the Lord will allow us to go down that slippery slope of the seven stairs of descent into lying. There's a point at which the conscience goes quiet.

At first it hurts a lot to lie. But after you lie a while, the conscience begins to be numbed and hardened, and you find you can lie comfortably. If you can lie comfortably, you ought to be at the altar screaming for God's mercy. Because you have been allowed. He has allowed you; he's giving you over to that spirit.

The sweetest thing in the world is when you sin and your heart just makes you miserable. That's the Holy Spirit. That's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful sign of your regeneration. That you're a man, a woman filled with God and the spirit of God inside you is just grieving. Making you miserable.

That's wonderful. You just go die somewhere. That means you're his; you're his child. You're filled with his presence. You just cannot sin comfortably at all. When I prayed for that little one, you know, I prayed for those children. I snuck that in. I don't know if you noticed. I said, "Oh God, make them always comfortable in your presence and miserable." I may have not used that word. I don't recall.

When they're away from you, may the heart always be uncomfortable away from you. That's a gift. I want my children; I want myself to be miserable when I'm away from God. I want my heart strings to pull me back. I don't want to have to be driven back like an ox. I want my heart to pull.

And so you never want, look at that in verse 24, it says, "God gave them over." Verse 26, for this reason, God gave them over. Verse 28, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do things which are not offered.

Never let that happen to you. Revelation chapter 21, verse 27. Here we are at the end of the book, looking right into the new Jerusalem. After the millennium, there will be this great city that God brings to the city of Jerusalem. We will live there. The Lord's glory will be our light.

And the Lord and His Lamb will be our temple. And it says here that there's a gate. And they will bring, verse 26, the glory and the honor of the nations into it. And nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it. No one who practices what? Lying. But only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Now there is a statement of the autosoborists. And then chapter 22, verse 15. I'll start at 14. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they might have the right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city. Outside the city, outside God's city, are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices what? Everyone who loves and practices lying.

It is simply not a practice that's acceptable to God because its root is the father of lies. You and I are temples of the Holy Spirit, and our lips are never to express the demonic spirit of confusion and be a vehicle, an avenue for him to speak through us. We are radical people. We cast ourselves onto the truth. We live in the truth, believing that our God will protect us.

Our God will provide for us. Our God will save our marriages. Our God will save our children. Our God will do our work for us, not lies. Would you bow your heads with me? Just for a moment, let me just read one verse with your heads bowed and your eyes closed.

Isaiah, when he was called, I read this the other day, when he was called as a prophet, he saw the Lord in a vision. And his response was to say, "Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips."

And I think, first of all, that meant lying. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And then one of the seraphim, a burning angel flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.

And he touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven." Today we're going to pray to simply confess that... Our lips are not a place for lying. And ask the Lord to, with that power of the Holy Spirit, touch our lips and cleanse our lips, that they would be the vehicle for the Holy Spirit.

And that our lips would be a powerful avenue for ministry. Holy Spirit, right now, we come in the name of Jesus. And Lord, we do confess that in various ways, We tend to lie. And we ask you to forgive us. We confess our lies. We confess that they have no faith in them, that they are fearful and proud, self-reliant tools that show that our hearts do not trust our God.

And we ask you to forgive us and cleanse us. People, if you feel comfortable, would you just put your hand to your lips almost as though that coal were touching you? Lord, right now, we dedicate this mouth. And may the power of the Holy Spirit take that coal of your holiness, of your purity.

And touch our mouths and cleanse them. We ask you to wash away all uncleanness. And to re-empower and dedicate these lips, this tongue, to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Anoint us, Lord. Make us powerful, anointed men and women through whom truth with the glorious anointing breaks into the confusion and brings life.

We dedicate these mouths to you and to your truth. In Jesus' name we pray. If that's your prayer, would you say amen? Hear us, Lord, and make it so. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to order one of Pastor Steve's books or see what other resources we offer, visit our website at lifelessonspublishing.com.

Again, that's lifelessonspublishing.com. And don't forget to share us with a friend.