Simon O'Grady - Unlocking the Proverbs - Class 6 - The Wise and The Fool, The Righteous and the Wicked

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Good morning, brothers and sisters, as we come to our last day together and our final study here on the book of Proverbs and unlocking it. And we've titled this Love Truth, Proverbs in Practice. I want to begin this morning by you doing a little bit of a self-test. So here's the self-test. Just let's spend a minute thinking about where we would rank ourselves here, mark ourselves on this scale.

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   Am I a truthful person? 1. Not at all truthful. 10. I'm truthful all the time. And 0. Too embarrassed to say. Give you a minute to think about that. Am I a truthful person?

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   All right. That's probably enough time. I won't ask for a show of hands. I'm sure we're all put 0. Too embarrassed to say because we're truthful people. But that's just a quick little anchor for us as we begin to look at the subject of truth in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs in Practice.

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   So there's our first anchor. Here's our second one. I just want to reflect for a minute on this slide here. Our circles of identity. All right. So our truthfulness, our untruthfulness is going to revolve around who I think I am. My self-identity or the beliefs I have about myself. They're going to revolve around who we want others to think we are.

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   Our status. What judgments they make about us. What they might think about us. And our identity is also going to focus or be revolving around who we really are from God's perspective. So just reflect on that for a moment. This is another just anchoring slide for us as we start looking at this subject.

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   Who do we think we are? Who do others think we are? Who does God think we are? And when we come to the subject of truth and lies and honesty and dishonesty, it's going to be a relationship concept. It's going to be about what we think about ourselves. The lies we tell ourselves.

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   It's going to be the lies we tell others around who we think they think we are. And about the lies that we tell to our Heavenly Father in our relationship with Him and with our Lord. So just reflect on that for a moment. Our circles of identity and our relationships between those circles and within them and the subject of lies and truth.

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   Our August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August August the good and reject the evil is the foundation of the book of proverbs we find that that wisdom and understanding that came from god himself is inherently truth proverbs chapter 8 verse 1 to 8 on screen does not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice here i will speak excellent things the opening of my lips shall be right things my mouth will speak truth wickedness is

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   an abomination to my lips all the words of my mouth are in righteousness there's nothing froward or perverse in them nothing froward and perverse in them so the wisdom and understanding that we've been considering this week is inherently truth nothing untruthful no frowardness no perverseness they are words of truth now that idea pervades through the book of proverbs that's why we will find that the characteristic that defines the evil man and the strange woman from chapter 2 that we are to be delivered from through the book through the knowledge understanding wisdom of the book dishonesty lies frowardness are the inherent characteristics of those two arch nemeses and god thinks it's disgusting it's the term abomination in proverbs 11 verse 20 says a froward heart is an abomination disgusting to yahweh but such as are upright in their ways are his delight so it provokes there's a visceral and emotional reaction from god dishonesty and untruth it's an abomination but he's delighted by the opposite with the truth of the upright proverbs chapter 12 verse 22 lying lips are an abomination disgusting to god but they that deal truly are his delight proverbs 11 verse 1 a false balance is abomination to yahweh but a just weight is his delight and finally proverbs chapter 6 verse 16 to 17 where we see the seven attributes of the evil man these six things does yahweh hate yea seven are an abomination disgusting to him a proud look and a lying tongue so deceit dishonesty lying in thought and tongue and action is disgusting to god and the opposite truth in all of those are his delight there's a strong emotional reaction from god to both of those and it's a theme that runs through the book

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    of proverbs so we find that the theme of true and false witness keeps repeating through these little snippets of proverbs remember those little proverbs the little parallelism little dualities the little small lego building blocks that god saying see this is the very step when you put two things together and it infers wisdom that's how understanding is created and so he's given us a pattern through the book he's also done it beautifully genius that every one of them is presented as a time a choice and a consequence to the two branches of it so he's telling us that there are choices in life constantly all the time and the wise develop the ability to recognize them see the principle choose the good and not the evil and he does it in these brilliant little couplets these parallelisms that either compare and contrast or they extend to create consequence and meaning the base building blocks of his knowledge his understanding his thought and his wisdom and so many of these little couplets revolve around the principle of true and false witness or the true and false weights now why because in the nation the two key interactions of people and their social activities day by day where the principle of truth was essential is where justice is to occur true and false witness and where economic exchanges occurred every day between people of the nation where there was to be a true weight not a false one and god calls those in georon chapter 25 verse 15 to 16 you will have a perfect and just weight a perfect and just measure shall they have for all that do such things all that do unrighteously that is have an

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    unjust one are an abomination disgusting to god so when he looked at the nation and they were exchanging economically all over the place every day is one of the central aspects of social interaction between human beings he said there needs to be truth in that economic exchange and it's not as disgusting to me and when he saw conflict between human beings and the nation and they came to the justice system that was established he said it must be based on truth true witness not false witness and he uses the same term disgusting abomination as a false witness so god embedded in the society they had in these two dominating interactions in conflict and economic exchange the principle truth for us not of life now when we come all the way through to the new testament we look at the conflicts between ecclesias bringing in a false doctrine the emerging of the apostasy that would grow out it's all explained and talked about in terms of deceit and lies here's just a series of passages on screen i'll read them because the font's small romans 16 17 i beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine you have learned and avoid them they are those who serve not our lord jesus christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the heart of a proverbs term the simple second corinthians chapter 4 verse 2 you have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty not walking in craftiness not handling the word of god deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth commanding ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of god

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    ephesians chapter 4 verse 14 that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive the characteristic of the evil man from proverbs second peter chapter 2 verse 18 when they speak great swelling words of emptiness they entrap through the lusts of the flesh through much wantonness those who are clean escape from them who live in error so you see the thinking the framing of it was all about deceit and lies and dishonesty which is disgusting abomination to god and it was at the heart of these conflicts and the introduction of false doctrine now when we come to the book of proverbs is a completely different attitude and spirit when we come to the wise this is what the wise think of truth it's a summary of what they think of truth in the book of proverbs they love truth this is an emotional connection to truth goes far beyond an intellectual construct to one that's a relationship basis a love truth they hate lies and deceit there's an emotional aversion as well as intellectual to lies and deceit their way of life is truth for them truth is a way of life the way they think the way they speak the way they act their subconscious habits are all about truth and the truth of god appeals to them as something beautiful something to be loved something to be aspired to and they deal truthfully with god's words they hearken to it they hang on it they pursue it they seek it out they're diligent they're passionate

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    about it so this morning we want to examine this spirit this quality of the wise and the opposite that quality of the evil of the evil of the wicked of the evil man of a strange woman their lies and their deceit we want to aspire this morning to be truthful to love the truth of god so here's a few things about lying i went searching read a lot of different things a few academic papers read a few books and here's some important facts if you like about lying so children by about the age of two are accomplished lives so within 24 months of birth from knowing nothing understanding nothing they've built this complex map of the world and they understand that they know stuff that other people do not and they can use that to their advantage to get things so they can manipulate others by telling them certain things or withholding certain things many studies you can imagine the academics go how early does lying start certainly by age two maybe earlier they lie generally to do two things to embellish all right so they add stuff to the information new information that's not true to make it look bigger or brighter or to cause people to think things or do things so there's an adding to or they hide it they conceal to avoid punishment to avoid consequence and so they're concealing something it's interesting actually isn't it the lord's warning at the end of revelation was do not add to or take away and if you do all the curses of the book will be added to you because it's the base principle isn't it really where it all starts will we add to truth or we take away

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    from truth as the essence of a lie there are many academic studies but many of them are self-reporting well how do you observe if somebody's actually lying in their head and as they speak and but these all conclude and they're self-reported so they'll play a whole lot of habitual line people aren't even aware of but about two to three times a day is on average what they come up with the average person so it's natural isn't it dishonesty lying to the flesh we learned it when we were two years old now what is a lie well here's the dictionary definitions a lie is to make a false statement with the intention to deceive oxford english dictionary or stanford encyclopedia philosophy a lie is a statement by one who does not believe it with the intention that someone else shall be led to believe it and if you look at all the academics and the literature they've got as they try and define it this is generally where they come to that they'll have four components there is a statement that's needed for there to be a lie that statement is not true demonstrably the statement is made transferred to someone else and there's an intent to deceive the person and to believe in the statement to be true now there are variations in this and there's lots of debate about whether intent is or isn't needed and what level of intent etc but let's not worry about that because in a moment we're going to get a biblical definition of lying from the word of god but that's what they've come up with as they

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    try to define what are lies but it is about trying to manipulate the views of someone else so that they're deceived into believing something to be true when it is not deceit's similar but here's the definition so the oxford english dictionary again says that deceit is dishonest behavior so it goes beyond now just statement that is intended so they still have an intent to make someone believe something that is not true or cambridge dictionary it is an act of keeping the truth hidden especially to get advantage so you can see they're exploring the ideas of hiding a truth and behavior and intent and getting advantage but it's all hovering around the same thing we've created an impression a belief in someone that is not true we might do it by hiding information we might be doing it by inventing information that's not true we might outright say something that is false we might create impressions without quite saying something that's not true but we know that the impression we're trying to create is not true and we do so through innuendo or misrepresentations so we can quite clever about it can't we oh well that's how dictionaries and schools of philosophy seek to define what lying and deceit is and they they're all hovering around the right essential ideas but how does god understand lying and deceit and we're going to find it's much broader than just telling a lie and it's whenever falsehood is presented as truth and intent is certainly not necessary for it to be a lie or deceit so it's whenever falsity is presented as truth as we go through this passage you'll start to see that idea emerge so there are a

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    lot of passages in the scripture about god about us about christ about truth we're just going to look up one passage for each god is truth come with me to james chapter 1 verse 17 18 because you learn some important things about god and his relationship to truth james chapter 1 verse 17 to 18 and here the analogy of light and dark is used to represent the ideas of truth and falsehood james chapter 1 verse 17 every good gift every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning now of course it's explaining an idea of a physical light and if you turn it it doesn't create a shadow that's using it as a metaphor and analogy that god is truth there is no untruth in him verse 18 of his own will beget he us with the word of truth so that we could be a kind of first fruits of his creation so god is truth there's no untruth in god none said titus 1 verse 2 god who cannot lie john chapter 1 he is full of grace and truth as is the son even in his name i am i exist is the foundational idea of its truth i am it's a truth statement all right let's go to john chapter 8 verse 32 we find truth and the lord jesus christ again in john 1 14 he is full of grace and truth in john chapter 4 24 we worship god in spirit and in truth and john chapter 8 verse 32 let's turn that up we come across those beautiful and well-known statements but

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    it it makes this incredible point that truth will set us free john chapter 8 verse 32 and commencing in verse 30 as he spake these words many believed on him then said jesus to the jews who believed on him if you continue in my word you are my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free so the words of jesus christ are truth they are where we come to know and that knowledge of that truth will make us free in the context from death from sin and from everything associated with it all right finally come to john chapter 3 verse 21 and we see the relationship of us as disciples to the truth to god who is true to jesus christ who is true in whom there's no untruth there's no variableness only truth john chapter 3 verse 21 and that's a um misquote i should have the one that those who love the truth who he does truth comes to the light someone out here where am i supposed to be oh am i looking at the wrong oh you're right i've been putting off getting glasses for so long all right let's begin in verse 18 he that believeth on christ is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of god and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil and everyone that does evil hates the light neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be

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    revered reproved but he that doeth truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in christ in god so there's a beautiful statement isn't it about our relationship to truth as disciples we want to come to the truth so our deeds are made manifest but those who do evil will not come to the light they will not come to the scriptures they will not come to god because evil is in them and they don't want it made manifest so that's the spirit of truth in the light of a disciple they want to know we want to know where the evil is in our life we want it to be revealed by our judge jesus christ we want it to be removed as the spirit of the disciple all right so we can see from those passages that truth is central to our relationship with god our relationship with christ i'm going to spend a few minutes now getting a bit deep all right we could spend a lot of time on this but there's a lot of depth to this idea that god is true just reflect on that god is truth not only likes to be sometimes is he is inherently truth and that means that every single thing he says is true and he can't lie he cannot because he is truth so truth is inherent in everything he does ever now why is that important because if you have no truth you only have chaos this is true in the material created world god created the world because he spoke and it was done and it was a manifestation of the truth of god that's why we

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    can look that's why scientists can look into a universe that's full of truth that's why the scientific method of principle is a falsifiable hypothesis at the heart of the process because there's a truth that you're looking for that's why they can assume and look at everything out and think they will find structure they will find order they will find they will find truthfulness in it is it true is it not true is it right or not right is at the heart of the entire creation of the father so without god being true nothing nothing can exist nothing think about this if there's no truth we cannot know anything because there's no truth to know knowledge is about something that's true if there's no truth we cannot believe in anything we cannot have the concept of faith you know it's fascinating that all the philosophers going back to the greeks and probably earlier one of their big conundrums was a do i exist how do i know what's true can i believe in anything god is truth is the foundation of the created universe as a manifestation of his order and without it there is only chaos without god nothing can exist because he's true we cannot have faith we cannot believe unless he's true so god is true so god is true is the foundation of everything so if god is true where did lying come from well we know don't we and put this on screen john chapter 8 44 this is where lies entered the world this is where god said lies or untruth came into the world john chapter 8 verse 44

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    as christ is having an exchange with those around him he's saying whose father whose descendant are you from and this is what he says to them he says you are of the father of the diabolos and your will is to do your father's desires he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because no truth is in him and when he lies he speaks out of his own character for he's a liar and the father of lies and that's from the esb because it gives the sense of the character of the diabolos it's untruthful there's no truth in him it's the opposite of god in which there is no lie no untruth there is no truth in the diabolos he is the father of lies and the first liar so what is the first lie well it's beautiful isn't it in a simplicity we all know this let's remind ourselves of it so precise and beautiful and profound in its simplicity as is everything that god ever does the serpent said to the woman you shall not surely die the first lie the father of all lies if you think about because it says that there is no consequence for sin and god is a liar and it entered the world brothers and sisters in the beginning and it is not of god and there is no truth in it there is a consequence for sin and that's one of the fundamental messages of the book of proverbs there is consequence evil there is consequence good there are choices to make and god is true he is no liar so that's the origination of all lying and deceit in the world around us today it began in the beginning

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    what we're going to do now is we're going to do a biblical speed read of lying in the scripture and we're going to use the epistle of john so hopefully you will be all familiar with every one of these lies and i did all this before even knowing that the epistle of john was going to be a other consideration this week all right so i'm going to race through these very quickly but you'll see john sets out i'm sure as you know a series of lies but it gives us a lot of insight into how god thinks about lying and what lying is it goes far beyond the concept of a statement the statement's not true there's an intention to deceive and the person receives it it goes to a much higher level that god is true and in him there's no lie there is no darkness at all so let's speed read these first one john i'll put them on screen first john 1 5 16 i've tried to highlight the actual lie in blue we lie when we say we're in fellowship with christ but our walk does not match that statement this then is the message which we've heard with him and declared to you that god is light and in him is no darkness at all he's true there's no lie no untruth in him and if we say we have fellowship with him i'm in fellowship but we walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth so we lie when we say we're in fellowship with christ but our walk does not match that statement first john chapter 1 verse 8 to 9 we lie when we justify ourselves if we say we have no sin there's our lie

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    the untrue statement i have no sin it's a lie we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us but if we confess our sins is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all right unrighteousness so we lie when we justify ourselves first john chapter 2 verse 3 to 4 we lie when we say i know christ but we don't do what he asks us to hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments he that says i know him there's the lie and keeps not his commandments is a liar the truth is not in him first john chapter 2 verse 21 22 we lie when we deny doctrinal truth i have not written unto you because you know not the truth but because you know it no lie is of the truth who is a liar but he that denieth that jesus is the christ he is the antichrist that denies the father and the son so the untrue statement is that jesus is not the christ that's connected of course the second john chapter one verse seven many deceivers are entered the world who are confessed that jesus not that jesus christ has come in the flesh this is a deceiver and an antichrist i'm sure as you know what john is referring to was this evolving concept here that jesus christ wasn't really human he was only divine he just looked like a human he was really spirit there was no humanness to him he didn't come in the flesh and of course that lie destroys the atonement because if jesus christ does not come in the flesh

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    then he cannot die and declare that god is right so that's a lie and finally in first john chapter 4 verse 20 we lie when we say we love god but we behave badly towards others if a man say i love god there's the lie and hates his brother he is a liar i said that was the last one but i lied first john chapter 1 verse 10 to 5 these are a little bit more tricky but i think there's some fantastic insight in this if we don't believe something that god says is true we're saying he's a liar that's because he said something and we believe we're saying it's not true and so we're saying he's a liar so first john chapter 1 verse 10 if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar why because god says we have sinned so if we say we haven't we're saying that what he said is not true so he must be a liar first john chapter 5 verse 10 he that believes not god has made him a liar because he believeth not the record that god gave of his son oh is that an expansion of the concept he that believeth not god makes him a liar now we're being told that unbelief of a true statement or position of god is making god a liar because god said it is true and we don't believe it so we must be saying that what he said is untrue and we follow the next step of the logic but god is true so if we say god is not true when he is who is the liar

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    that extends it very insistent to say that whenever we fail to believe to have faith we are stating that god is a liar that's the implications of first john chapter 5 this concept becomes much more pervasive doesn't it now you know in 2nd thessalonians chapter 2 verse 8 to 12 beautifully built around the terminology and the picture and the archetype of the evil man of the book of proverbs this man of sin the wicked one the evil one who would be revealed his inherent characteristic is lying wonders deceivableness unrighteousness because they receive not a love of the truth that they might be saved love of what truth that they might be saved well a love of the truth of the salvation in jesus christ what is that well it's what we call the atonement isn't it and what's the atonement well it's two halves it's death and life and says acts in connection to the other we are reconciled by death we are saved much more by life so it's a more powerful transcending principle but you can't have it without the death and in the death of christ we declare what god is right he is true and they could not accept that and so it's the spirit of the wicked one in the book of thessalonians and for this cause verse 11 god shall send them a strong delusion and they will believe a lie what lie well the lie of john that jesus christ did not come in the flesh he's divine only christ is god and they destroy the whole principle of the atonement because now jesus christ cannot declare the righteousness

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    truth of god and so they would all be condemned to believe not that truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness so we've covered a lot so let's just summarize what we've seen is that god's definition of lying and deceit is a much more extensive one it's based on the essential idea that god is true and it's absolute in every sense material moral everything he says and does is truth and a lie is anything that is not true as defined that way morally or materially by god it's untruth in all of its forms and it's the defining characteristic of the diabolos the serpent human nature and there's no truth in that nature it's the defining characteristic of the evil man and the strange woman in the book of proverbs and it's the father of all lies the statement thou shalt not die there is no consequence for sin runs right through and if you stop and think about it that all of those couplets are saying the consequence of evil and that choice is death it's a restatement of the truth of genesis over and over and over again through all the couplets and the proverbs there is a consequence for sin thou shalt surely die is the essence of the knowledge and understanding and wisdom to discern good and evil that we're presented with in the book of proverbs so it unlocks the book of proverbs with it tells us that truth is at its centre at the discernment of good and evil God is true it's at the centre of the principles of justice and righteousness God is true it's at the centre of judgement

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    deceit and lying is the core characteristic of sin from the beginning and that's why the book of proverbs so spends so much time there as the father explains to the son and the lord Jesus Christ and to us all the characteristics of the evil man and the strange woman their deceit their lies and presents to us the way of good the way of the path the tree of life the way of truth alright well there's our definition of the concept of truth I want to spend a few moments now thinking about our underlying problem with deceit and lying you know one of the impacts on me of this study is to find out I'm much more deceitful and much more of a liar than I ever believed so I want to spend a few minutes you know the drill now we're going to seek a bit of wise counsel so what we're going to break into is groups of two or three and see if we can keep two or three so the dynamics work well and we're going to ask these questions what do we lie about who do we lie to why do we lie so I'll give you about seven minutes to think through those and to share insights and collective wisdom wise counsel about our problem collectively with truth and honesty what do we lie about who do we lie to why do we lie I'll give you seven minutes

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    all right sorry to interrupt I have to confess a lie I said I'd give you seven minutes and it's now nine I should have said I'll give you approximately seven I will try to give you seven but I said I will give you seven and I have not see how easy it is to lie all right now I'd love to be able to spend 20 minutes of the whiteboard and get all of that up but we don't have any time so I'm going to share with you again some of the collective wisdom of other brethren sisters who've done that for the exercise this is some of the reasons why we lie or deceive to gain approval and acceptance of others so once again if you have some that aren't here and they're really important come and give them to me later I'd love to have them we lie and deceive to gain some personal benefit of some form some sort we can lie to avoid a consequence to avoid shame or embarrassment we can lie to hurt someone we may lie to try and protect someone we may lie to avoid facing reality we might lie to avoid a conflict we might just lie out of habit we might lie to gain control of someone else and there'll be other reasons many others but these are some of the top ones and if we put that into our context of our identities we lie to ourselves we create a vision and a picture of ourselves out of pride and we imagine we're something we are not but we also lie to ourselves we can lie to ourselves

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    and tell us that we're hopeless of no value nobody likes us we're stupid I have an example of that I thought I was terrible at mathematics as a child because I never learnt my time stables and I still don't know them but I've learnt to add up really fast in my head I worked out later it's because I learned by having structured information if you just make me wrote learn I cannot remember stuff but if there's a context and a framework concept I can get it and it wasn't it wasn't until well into around about fifth form so 15 I genuinely thought I was quite stupid at mathematics because everybody around me told me at primary school nobody wanted me in their group because you remember those it all line up and the first four there'd be four times seven I don't know and whoever called it out first got a point for their team and you went to the back and nobody wanted me in their team I was stupid and I was told that so I came to have a self belief that I was useless at it cut a long story short it was somewhere around the fifth form and all the pennies dropped I got into things and my marks went from about 30% to about 90% and I went I actually are good at this but for almost all my life to that point I laboured the impression because other people had told me I was stupid it was a lie so we can lie to ourselves about who we are in a negative way we can lie to ourselves

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    about who we are in regards to we're much greater than we actually are we can lie to others because we want them to believe something about us we create impressions because we want them to think something about us but the question we've got to ask from this is who are we really from God's perspective and I've concluded I don't know I can't even evaluate myself so we've got to come before the righteous judge before the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and say chasten me correct me show me whether there's any unclean or evil thing in me cleanse me of it is the spirit we need we need to focus on God's perspective the only one that matters so how do we overcome excuse me overcome lying and deceit well the scriptures tell us put it off Colossians chapter 3 verse 9 and 10 lying has to do with the old man that we put off when we became baptized into Jesus Christ when we put on the new man lie not to one another he says in Colossians 3 verse 9 seeing that you've put off the old man with his deeds lying was a characteristic of the old evil man and we put it off at our baptism and we put on the new man Christ and are renewed in that knowledge after the image of the one who created him who is true we need to put it off bring the sisters that's what we said we'd do at our baptism we've got to stop pretending you know the Lord said this incredible thing in Matthew chapter 5 verse 33 to 37

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    in regards to the practice of swearing an oath now swearing an oath of chaos is an inherent thing about truthfulness are you telling the truth or not telling the truth can I believe you or not believe you and of course the bigger oath and the greater being or entity or thing and the gold in the temple would that the temple itself might be the biggest thing I'll swear on that so you know I'm telling the truth and Christ says stop it stop all that pretense he says let your communications be yes yes and no no because whatever is more of these comes of evil see the echo of Proverbs keep it simple and the Lord in brilliant precisis says think about honesty in terms of the very first statement of truth and error yes it is true no it is false let your communication be simple and clear yes and no because when you complicate it beyond that then evil comes this one makes me squirm so I'm going to share it with you and I've framed it in terms of myself what about good intentions so imagine this scenario you're there you come to me and you say Simon I want you to do something in two weeks time and I say yeah I'll do that and you go away thinking great Simon's going to do it he's going to do it on time it's going to be good quality it's going to meet the expectations that we agreed and two weeks later you come to me and say have you done that thing and I go oh I'm busy look I'll get on to it

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    I'll be there give me a week and I say you go yeah okay Simon I'll give you a week but only a week and you come back in a week's time and you say is it done I'm so really busy I will have it done in a week's time and I finally deliver it to you not what we agreed over time poor quality and I say here it is I want to ask the question what are you thinking about Simon now can I trust Simon but you know you're all nice people so you're probably thinking look I don't know what's going on Simon's life I'll give him the benefit of the doubt maybe maybe there was just some urgency things and that's okay and so you do it a second time you come to Simon you ask him to do something you have the same experience what are you thinking now can't trust him he's not true so you see this gets pretty close to the bone doesn't it about the truth of God this is why Christ says and you can see the principle of integrity and diligence through the book of Proverbs we say it we mean it and we do it now of course what if something did happen in my life and it all fell apart and I couldn't deliver it and I came back to you and I said I can't do it what would you say you're nice you go it's okay I understand get someone else to do it but you'd still trust me wouldn't you so see how important it is this is truth in interactions with each other

32. 46:21

    Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 4 says when you vow vow to God defer not to pay it he has no pleasure in fools pay that which thou hast vowed see this is truth and practice in our life we need to stop looking for status we all know the Ananias and Sapphira story we've taught it to Sunday school kids it's a brilliant story because we can say to them you're not lying to men you're lying to God but of course the whole lie of Ananias and Sapphira was a status one Barnabas just gave a whole lot of money other brethren and sisters are doing this oh I want to be like that I sold a possession get back part of the price put it there and project a lie an impression an image that this is true and immediately in Acts chapter 5 verse 4 Peter says why have you conceived this thing in your heart you've not lied to men but unto God and of course later on when Sapphira turns up he asks the question verse 9 how was it that you've agreed or he says did you spend or did you sell the land for so much in verse 8 and she says yes for so much so she lies and Peter said to her how is it you've agreed together to but listen to this test the spirit of God the spirit of the Lord because God's true and it's an abomination to him it's disgusting when he sees a lie because what were they really saying God cannot see I can lie to my brethren and sisters and create an impression God cannot

33. 48:03

    see we need to stop looking for status as one of the drivers of our lives or the lauderdale problem have you seen that there's a lie at the centre of it which is why the Lord says in Revelation 3 verse 14 to 17 he uses the title the amen the true the faithful the true witness I know your works you're neither cold nor hot you're not yes or no you're not yea or nay so then because they are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I'll spew you out of my mouth I'll find you an abomination disgusting because you say I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and you have a self perception of yourself but really this is how God sees you you're wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked and of course that's the problem of materialism isn't it brethren sisters it creates a false impression that God's blessed us and we are all of these things and we're blinded to the truth do you know confession is inherently a truth concept it's a truth saying first on chapter 1 verse 8 if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us but if we confess now what is confession it's a statement about the truth of our position before God and I love this title this phrase if we confess our sins if we state the truth about our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us see our Lord Jesus Christ is our judge he's faithful he's just he perceives good and evil he's perfect and he is

34. 49:56

    our judge and we come to him to confess our sins and he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness so living the truth brothers and sisters means we need to come to the light the word of God his knowledge is wisdom and understanding is the sermon of good and evil to see with our deeds our truth we need to confess and admit that God is true and we are sinners we need to create a habit of truthfulness in our life and break all the habits of deceit that we've learnt from two years old we need to practice truth as a way of life we need to model it to our children and train our children to be true and not lie we've got to be tellers of truth we've got to think in truth and we've got to understand the immense power not of two but of the words that we speak I don't know why it says two there the immense power of the words that we speak the influence and impact they have on others so that our communication is true we need to in Ephesians 4 24 to 25 and I've got this from the new King James put us a little bit of clarity to it we need to put on the new man we put off the old man with the lying deceit the new man created according to God and true righteousness and holiness and put away lying and speak one of us and each one of us speak truth to our neighbor because we are members of one another truthfulness honesty and a

35. 51:47

    culture of truth and honesty at the heart of an ecclesia is essential to its functioning Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15 we must speak the truth in love that we may all grow up in all things which is the head even Christ speaking the truth to each other in love so it's a high calling isn't it when we begin to glimpse the enormity of the principle that God is true in him there's no variableness or shadow of turning there is no untruth and so the book of Proverbs presents to us that overarching principle and characteristic of the wise that they are true they eschew the evil of untruth of lies and deceit they love the truth so I'm going to finish with just two passages one's taken from the epistle of John because all the conclusions of the book of Proverbs end up dovetailing with those of John and I'll put these on the screen this really is the lesson of the book of Proverbs for us in the words of John all unrighteousness is sin there is a sin not unto death but we know that whoever is the son of God born of God sinneth not but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one the evil one the wicked one of the book of Proverbs touches him not and we know we have the knowledge that we are of God and the whole world lies wickedness we know we have the knowledge that the son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is

36. 53:50

    true even in his son Jesus Christ this is the true God and eternal life for without faith without a belief in the truth of God it is impossible to please him for he that comes to God must believe in the truth that he is and that he is a rewarder beyond our wildest imaginations far beyond what we deserve to those who diligently see him because