The Deception Epidemic

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew.
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It's going to be in chapter 5, and if you'll hold your place at verse 33, in just a moment we'll be standing to read that verse.
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I want to remind everyone we have been, for the last few months, in a study of the Sermon on the Mount, going verse by verse.
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I guess we began sometime, maybe back in October, November, in the early part of Matthew.
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We are now to the 33rd verse.
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This morning we're going to be talking about what Christ has to say in this verse in regard to the subject of truthfulness.
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The term ethic refers to moral principles which govern the behavior of a person or a group.
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The root word is ethos, which is the Greek word for character.
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A person or a group is characterized by the principles which govern their behavior.
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Most of us have probably heard the term, the Judeo-Christian ethic.
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It's become very popular in media.
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We hear it a lot on the news.
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They talk about the Judeo-Christian ethic.
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And when somebody uses that term, it is typically an attempt to describe people who, in some form or fashion, try to live out what the Bible teaches.
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Because, you know, the Old Testament, they would say, is the Jewish Bible.
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The New Testament, the Christian Bible.
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Of course, we believe the whole Bible is inspired by God.
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But that's why they say the Judeo-Christian ethic.
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And ethics are a valuable part of what make any people.
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They're foundational to the Christian faith.
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The Christian life is a life of principle.
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It is a life which is supposed to be marked by certain behaviors which separate it from the world.
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We're supposed to be different.
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We're supposed to be separate.
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This is not to say that we're supposed to separate and be away as in a monastery or some commune.
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But we're supposed to be, as many people have said, in the world, but not of the world.
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The Christian life, as I said, is a life of principle.
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Yet, at the same time, Christianity is not simply a list of do's and don'ts.
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It's much more than simply a list of do's and don'ts.
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The principles which make up Christianity are founded in the Scriptures.
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And they're, like I said, it's much more than just yes and no.
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It's principles which undergird everything that we do.
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In fact, it wasn't too long ago in our land that Christianity was associated with certain types of virtuous behavior.
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And so associated that it was common to hear someone say, well, that's very Christian of you.
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I don't know if you remember anyone using that vernacular.
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But to say, yeah, well, that was a very Christian thing to do.
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Or you may have heard somebody say, well, that was not very Christian of you, you know, because virtuous behavior was equated with Christian behavior.
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That's what people understood.
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This is the way Christians are supposed to behave.
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There's supposed to be a certain virtue which goes along with this faith.
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Now, unfortunately, like many things, that term began to be misused.
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People began to label things as un-Christian, which are not found in Scripture.
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And soon everything under the sun became un-Christian.
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And everything from dancing to going to the movies to listening to music that wasn't from a certain genre or something like that.
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All those became listed as un-Christian things to do.
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And like many things, the pendulum swang too far.
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But beloved, there is a real truth.
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And that is that Christianity does have an ethic.
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We do have commands from our Lord Jesus Christ, which we are obligated to follow.
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They don't save us, but certainly we are not without that obligation to follow them.
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Jesus Christ said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
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If we say we love Christ and we don't keep his commandments, then the question becomes, do we really love him? I mean, that has to come up.
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We have to ask ourselves that.
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And in our modern world, these standards are often mocked and outrightly rejected.
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Not only by the world, but also, sadly, by the church.
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There are movements within Christianity which have abandoned the biblical ethic and replaced it with moral relativism.
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Whole churches are now founded on the idea that we have no obligation to seek to live godly lives.
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We have no obligation to seek to live for Christ, to seek to live differently than the world.
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In fact, some say that teaching such a thing is legalism.
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But what actually has occurred is that an antinomian spirit has cropped up in the church.
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Antinomianism comes from the Greek word nomos, which is law.
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It means to be opposed to the law or to be opposed to any belief that we should follow the commands of Scripture.
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And beloved, this is what's going on in many churches.
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There are many people in churches who say, you know what, it doesn't matter what the Bible says.
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I believe in Jesus so I can live like I want.
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They have become the quintessential Roman VI person.
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What does Roman VI say? The Apostle Paul asks, shall we continue in sin so that grace should abound? By no means.
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Let it never be.
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God forbid that that would be the case.
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But yet that has become the new Christian ethic, the new way of living.
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We'll just live like we want and believe in Jesus.
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Beloved, such an attitude is both dangerous and unbiblical.
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And might I add, it's not very Christian.
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Once we have given up our pursuit of Christian character, once we have given up our ethical principles, we have given up our pursuit of godliness.
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And beloved, the Bible uses that word predestined, and I know it makes some people uncomfortable, but do you know what it says we are predestined to? It says we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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Romans chapter 8, that's what we have been predestined to do, to be conformed to his image.
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How can we say we are among the elect if we are not being conformed to the image of Christ? That's a valuable and important question.
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So beloved, in the Sermon on the Mount, which we've been studying for the past few months, Jesus is providing for us an exposition on the Christian ethic.
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He is exposing the false teachings of the Pharisees.
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He says, you have heard it said this, but I tell you this.
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And he's not denying the law of God, as many people have inappropriately interpreted it.
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He's not denying the law of God.
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He's denying the Pharisaical misinterpretation of the law.
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You have heard it said this, but I say unto you this.
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This is what Christianity looks like.
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It's not enough just to not murder.
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Jesus said that we should also curtail our unrighteous anger and our words of hurt and pain and our murderous language.
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That should be reined in as well.
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It's not enough just to not stick the knife in.
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But we have to control our inner anger as well.
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It's not enough just to not commit adultery.
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But we must have pure eyes.
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We must seek to not be ones who are fulfilling the lust of the flesh through the eyes.
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To look upon a woman with lustful intent, Jesus says.
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Marriage is to be held in high esteem.
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Divorce is a corruption of that truth.
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And divorce should be shunned.
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We should not have it among us.
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Certainly there are going to be those among us who have suffered.
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But yet we need to look back at that, repent of that, and move forward.
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This is the ethic of Christianity.
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Jesus is not able to expound every law in this sermon.
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But He is expounding the principles of law.
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And He's providing us with examples of how God's law is more than just rules to live by.
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They're principles upon which to build a life.
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This is why at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, He says about that house that's built on the sand and the house that's built on the stone.
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He said, if anyone listens to these words of mine and does not heed them, he is like a man who builds his house on the sand.
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And the winds come and the rains come and it washes it away because it's not founded on anything.
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And beloved, what happens in the modern church that's not founded on the truth of Scripture, but it's founded on some false antinomian thing.
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Somebody comes in, they get saved.
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They're happy for a day because they raised their hand.
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They signed a card.
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They came forward.
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But they didn't have a changed life.
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And as a result, they go right back out into the world unchanged and the world re-envelops them.
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And they're like the seed that fell on rocky soil.
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And though it sprang up for a time, it withered away because it had no root.
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How many do we know just like that? Well, beloved, today we are going to look at Christ's continuing exposition of the Christian ethic.
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And we're going to look at the subject of truthfulness here in Matthew 5, verse 33.
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So that was a lengthy introduction.
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Let's now stand and hear the Word of God.
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Verse 33, Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
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But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
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And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
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Let what you say be simply yes or no.
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Anything more than this comes from evil.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for this precious truth that is contained in Your Word.
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I pray, O God, today that You would keep me from error as I seek to preach this truth.
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I pray that You would open the hearts of Your people to the truth.
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I pray that You would use this message to convert souls.
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And I pray that You would use this message to encourage Your people.
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In Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.
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Years ago, there was a film that was entitled Liar, Liar.
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It was about a boy named Max, whose father was a very talented, yet deceptive lawyer.
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On his birthday, Max made a wish that his father would have to go a whole day without telling a lie.
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And through the process of Hollywood movie magic, that wish came true.
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And the father went through what was portrayed on screen as a very comical day of being unable to tell a lie.
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The whole day, the father was unable to tell a lie, and it resulted in him alienating co-workers, insulting his neighbors, and frustrating his family.
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The movie was an attempt to be humorous, but it did shed light on a very serious issue in our world.
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The issue of our willingness to lie.
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In fact, the film's protagonist says at one point in the film, you don't understand, sometimes adults have to lie.
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I think that was sort of the crux of the film for me, because you step back and you say, this is the way people live, this is the way people think.
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Sometimes lying is just the best way for some.
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And the interesting thing is, this is not far off from the way many people live.
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People are experts at trying to find ways to circumvent the truth.
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There's a book out, interesting book, by Pamela Meyer, it's called Lie Spotting.
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Lie Spotting is a book about things that people do when they're being deceptive.
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Things that people do when they're trying to hide the truth from others.
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And she gives some interesting statistics about people's willingness to lie, as I was looking through and learning a little bit about this subject, about deception.
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Some of the quotes that she said just sort of stuck out in my mind.
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She said, last year, $997 billion was lost in corporate fraud.
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That is an eyelash under a trillion dollars.
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In fraud alone.
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On a given day, studies show that you will be lied to anywhere from 10 up to 200 times.
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Granted, many of those are white lies, quote unquote white lies.
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But in another study, it showed that strangers lie three times within the first 10 minutes of meeting each other.
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People lie within 10 minutes.
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Studies show that you will lie, or the average person will lie, three times.
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Whether it's about your history, where you went to school, how far you went in school, what you accomplished, what your resume is, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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It's all these things.
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It's very common for people to lie.
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People lie more to strangers than they do to coworkers.
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Extroverts lie more than introverts.
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Men lie eight times more about themselves than they do other people.
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And women lie more to protect other people.
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The average married couple lies to one another in one out of every 10 interactions.
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Lying is complex.
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It is woven into our daily lives.
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We are deeply ambivalent about the truth.
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Babies will fake a cry, stop, and look to see who's coming, and then cry again.
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I got a 15-month-old, and she's already chill.
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Eh! Okay, mama's in earshot.
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Eh! One-year-olds learn concealment.
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Two-year-olds learn to bluff.
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Five-year-olds lie outright.
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They manipulate via flattery.
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Nine-year-olds are masters of the cover-up.
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College students lie to their mothers in one out of every five interactions.
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By the time we enter the workforce, we enter a world which is cluttered with spam, fake digital friends, partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world-class Ponzi schemers.
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It is a deception epidemic, says the writer of the book.
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Those who believe in evolution actually teach that deception is a beneficial part of our growth as beings in this world, that it actually is part of the evolutionary process.
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As our neocortex begins to expand and we begin to become smarter, we become better at deceiving people, and that's actually a good thing, according to the evolutionary experts.
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It's survival of the fittest, and the fittest are those who do what it takes to succeed.
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So deception aids in dominating others and becoming a leader of the pack.
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Thus, deceitfulness is understood by the world to be part of doing business.
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And you all know that.
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You all know that that's the world that we live in, because when you hear that a politician has lied to you, are you really shocked anymore? When you hear about a corporation defrauding its investors, are you scandalized anymore? When you hear about a pastor fleecing his flock and using the funds to finance a lavish lifestyle, are you amazed? The answer is no.
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Outright deception has become so commonplace that it no longer has the capacity to shock us.
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We've become unshockable.
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We've become unsurprisable.
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We have become, what the Bible says, a people who have forgotten how to blush.
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One author says we live in a post-truth society.
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But what does Christ say about the truth? What does He say in regard to the truth? Well, for the Christian, according to the Christian ethic, which we talked about in our introduction, truth is paramount.
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It is the foundation upon which our entire belief system is supposed to be built.
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And if we are not people of the truth, then how can we call ourselves followers of the one who said He was the way, the truth, and the life? In our text today, Jesus is addressing the issue of taking oaths.
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And He's talking about how that relates to speaking the truth.
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Now, before we get into this, I want to make something perfectly clear.
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When Jesus is talking about oaths, this is not something that is really, really common in our society today.
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You may think about somebody taking an oath of office.
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You may think about somebody who's in court being under oath.
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But it was much more commonplace as a common practice of doing business back during the time of Christ.
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And I think that this passage is often misunderstood by people, because there are those, such as those in the Anabaptist movement, the Quakers, and such as those who believe that this passage is absolutely making all oaths illegal for Christians.
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And as a result, they are unwilling to participate in any activity where an oath is stated.
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They won't say the Pledge of Allegiance.
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They won't join the military.
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They won't do these things because an oath is involved.
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And as a result, they cannot participate.
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Of course, there's other reasons for the military.
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They're also pacifistic, so they won't participate because of that.
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But ultimately, this issue of oaths becomes very important.
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However, the Bible is not supposed to be read in one verse alone, but it is supposed to be compared as a whole.
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We are supposed to operate along the principle of the Analogium Scriptorum, the analogy of Scripture.
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We compare the Scripture with the Scripture.
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And if all oaths are being condemned by Christ, then we would have to take issue with some other parts of Scripture in the New Testament.
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For instance, the Apostle Paul in Galatians 1.20, he says, And what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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That's a statement of oath.
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When he says before God, he's referencing the fact that he's making this pledge in God's name.
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2 Corinthians 1.23, But I call God to witness against me.
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It was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth.
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This again is a statement of an oath.
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I'm promising this in God's name.
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Philippians 1.8, For God is my witness.
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I don't think it's 1.8.
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I guess maybe I have it wrong here in my notes.
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But it says, For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.
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So the idea of all oaths, the Apostle Paul would here be condemned because he has made the statement, he's used the language of the oath.
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Also, Jesus Christ, when he was taken before the Sanhedrin, submitted to being under oath before the court.
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D.
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Martin Lloyd-Jones says this in regard to Jesus being under oath.
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He said he did not denounce it on such an occasion, but seemed to regard it as perfectly legitimate.
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So there was a purpose for it.
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Christ submitted to it.
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As a result, if it were a sin for him to submit to it, he couldn't have done it because Christ would not sin.
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But most convincingly is that God himself promised by an oath, and it is recorded for us in the book of Hebrews.
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Hebrews 6, verse 16, For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.
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So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He guaranteed it with a what? With an oath.
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So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
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What did God pledge? He pledged an oath.
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As a result, if Christ is here, if He is denouncing every oath in every case for every situation, He would be denouncing Paul, He would be denouncing Christ, He would be denouncing Himself, He would be denouncing God.
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As a result, we must dig deeper.
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We must seek to understand what it is that Christ here is condemning.
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A simple comparison of all that the Bible says about oaths shows us that Jesus is not condemning all oaths, but is instead condemning a practice which was being taught by the Pharisees in His day.
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The oaths that Christ is repudiating were the ones which were conniving attempts to deceive, ones wherein the person making the oath had no intention of fulfilling it.
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Does everybody get that? Jesus is condemning the oaths that were not intended to be fulfilled.
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Matthew 5.33 Again, you have heard it said of those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.
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He's simply quoting a combination of multiple Old Testament verses which were being used by the Pharisees to demonstrate this issue of oaths.
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But, He goes into verse 34, He says, But I say unto you, do not take an oath at all by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
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And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
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These oaths which Jesus is talking about, the ones He is referring to here, were being taught by the Pharisees as attempts to compartmentalize their oaths and decrease the ability to bind them.
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Some of these compartmentalized oaths did not involve God, and some of them did, but the ones that didn't involve God, the people were not obligated to fulfill.
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I'll read to you a quote.
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According to the teaching of the ancient rabbis, swearing by heaven and earth meant to swear by the hosts of heaven and the hosts of earth.
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The Jewish writer Philo says it referred to the sun, the stars, and the whole earth.
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Since the Jews regarded these things as part of the created realm, and not God Himself, they did not look upon such a promise as a binding oath.
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Violating such an oath was not considered wrong.
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You see, there were some oaths that were inviolable, you had to do them, and some were not.
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It depended on how you made the promise.
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And you might say, Pastor, that seems a little weird.
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Well, go with me very quickly.
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Just turn to Matthew 23, and I'll show you where Jesus outlines this very clearly.
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Matthew 23, verse 16.
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Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees.
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In a couple of years, when I get done with the Sermon on the Mount, I may go here, because this passage is amazing.
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Jesus just uses this opportunity to express the false teachings.
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And He says to them in verse 23, He says, Woe to you blind guides! You who say, If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.
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See that? They have two types of oaths.
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This one, if you swear this way, you don't have to do it, but if you swear that way, you do.
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Verse 17, You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold of the temple, or he who made the gold sacred? And you say, If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.
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Again, two types of oaths.
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One's binding, one's not.
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You blind men! For which is greater, the gift on the altar, or the one that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it.
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Whoever swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who dwells on it.
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And whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits upon it.
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In this passage, Jesus is fleshing out the problem with the Pharisees' logic.
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Their logic was, as long as I do it this way, it's not binding.
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They were conniving the system.
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They were gaming the system, for lack of a better term.
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They were trying to figure out a way that they could make promises that they didn't have to keep.
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It was the first century equivalent of saying, I had my fingers crossed.
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I didn't really mean it.
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That was the problem that Jesus is addressing.
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Here's the thing, folks.
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It's not that oaths are necessarily evil.
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It's that oaths should be necessarily unnecessary.
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Let me say that again.
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It's not that oaths are evil.
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It's that oaths should be unnecessary.
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Because look what he goes on to say in verse 37.
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Let what you say be simply yes or no.
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For anything more than this comes from evil.
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Beloved, that's the Christian ethic when it comes to truthfulness.
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We are supposed to be people who tell the truth.
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We shouldn't be trying to find ways around the truth.
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We shouldn't be trying to come up with ways to circumvent the truth.
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We should be people whose word means what we say.
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Our word is our bond, is the old statement.
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And it should be our commitment to our yes being yes and our no being no.
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That's part and parcel of the Christian ethic.
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That's part and parcel of what it means to be a Christ follower.
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It's that people can actually trust what we say is true.
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There are some religious faiths that teach that deception is okay in the winning of people to that faith.
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That it's okay to lie so long as the lie results in the winning of people to Christ.
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Or winning of people to their religion.
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Creating a proselyte to their religion.
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As long as the ends are positive, then the means justify the ends.
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You might say, what kind of religion teaches something like that? A lot of modern churches do.
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Because they'll say anything it takes to get you through the door.
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Oh wow, that's too harsh.
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It's not harsh, it is the truth.
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What you win people with is what you win people to.
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And we spend so much time as a community of faith trying to win people with fancy programs.
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Trying to win people with a Jesus who cannot save.
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Trying to win people with a gospel that is not founded on sin and repentance.
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And yet when people get in, we start talking about repentance.
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This is not what you told me at the beginning.
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You didn't tell me about this whenever you were trying to tell me about Jesus.
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You told me that Jesus wants me happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.
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And yet we lie to people.
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This is why I do not ascribe to many of the modern evangelistic methods.
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Because many of them are nothing more than Jesus salesman techniques.
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They are not attempts to share the gospel of Christ.
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The gospel is offensive to the natural man.
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And God alone changes the heart.
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If we try to soften the gospel, we are lying to the people when we tell them about Christ.
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Because we are not telling them about the true Christ.
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We are telling them about some false idol that we think that they will accept.
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Because they will not accept the true Christ apart from a move of the Holy Spirit of God.
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As I said, for Christians, the truth is paramount.
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Oaths shouldn't even be a part of what we have to do.
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Our yes should be yes and our no should be no.
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We do not need to pepper our language with words of oaths and promises.
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It should be enough simply to say that we will or we won't.
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My children sometimes, not anymore, I have noticed this, I kind of thought about this this week.
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You know, my children, there was a time, do you promise? They would ask, do you promise? A long time ago I said, don't ask me to do that.
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If I say I will, I will.
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If I say I won't, I won't.
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And if I say maybe, good luck, because we don't know yet.
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But, don't make me have to say more than yes or no.
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Because such a thing is unnecessary.
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If I tell you yes, it is yes.
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If I tell you no, it is no.
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And that's how my children should understand my word.
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And that's how the world should understand our words as believers.
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Lies and deceit should not be things which describe Christian character.
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They are the opposite of what we are called to be.
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We are called to be lovers of the truth, proclaimers of the truth, followers of the truth, ambassadors of the truth.
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Our Savior called Himself the truth.
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Christianity is reliant upon the truth.
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Lying and being a liar is the antithesis of what Christianity is supposed to be.
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When we lie, we are not following Christ.
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When we lie, we are instead demonstrating our allegiance to Satan.
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Think about what Jesus said, John 8, verse 44.
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You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.
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He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth.
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Because there is no truth in Him.
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When He lies, He speaks out of His own character.
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For He is a liar and the father of lies.
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You know, this verse 8, verse 44, says you are of your father the devil.
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And He was a murderer from the beginning.
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Somebody may question that.
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Somebody may say, how was Satan a murderer from the beginning? Satan didn't kill Adam and Eve.
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How was Satan a murderer from the beginning? He killed them by His deceit.
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His lying tongue cut off their entrance into the kingdom.
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Or into the garden.
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His lies to Eve tempted her down a path of destruction, which led to the entire human race being plunged into total depravity.
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This is why Christ says He was a murderer from the beginning.
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So, the reality is, when we lie, when we deceive, when we seek to deceive others, when we seek to con someone, when we seek to trick someone, or fool someone, or dupe someone, we are not emulating Christ.
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Do you know the Bible says Christ never told a lie? You know, that's what's interesting about, you know, going back to what I said at the beginning, what the guy said in the movie.
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But Max, adults have to lie.
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Every time you tell yourself, I have to do this, ask yourself, did Christ have to do it? Because the Bible says, in 1 John 2, 22, He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth.
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Neither was deceit found in His mouth.
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That tells us right there, He never lied.
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It's not a necessary condition of humanity that we be liars, but we've lied to ourselves that it is.
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Interesting how that works.
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It's the irony of ironies, is we believe the own lie about lying.
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It said, when a person lies, again, he is emulating Satan, not Christ.
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And a life which is filled with lies is a life which has not been converted to the truth.
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This is why John can confidently say these words in Revelation 21, 8.
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He says, but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake of fire, the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
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Beloved, you know, we talked about this when we talked about hell last week.
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We talked about the issue, well, some people say, yeah, a person who murders children, sure, maybe we think he deserves hell.
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You know, maybe Adolf Hitler, yeah, he deserves hell.
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You know, Nero, the emperor, he deserves...
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We say these people, they were the cream of the crop when it comes to bad.
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We look here at this list, we see murder.
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We look at this list, we see sexual immorality.
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We look at this list, we see sorcery and idolatry and lying.
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This is what I challenge people with when I talk to them about the gospel, because when I share the gospel with somebody who I've either just recently met or maybe I don't know them very well, but I'm talking to them and I don't know their life and I don't know their history and I'm trying to share with them the gospel, I start out by talking to them about the gospel and I ask them, do you believe you're a good person? Do you really believe that? Or I ask them, why do you think, if you were to die, would you go to heaven? And inevitably the answer is yes.
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I've only had one person tell me no.
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Everybody else I've ever asked, if you died, would you go to heaven? Absolutely.
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And the next question, why? Because I am a good person.
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I am good.
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And then what's the next question? Have you kept God's law? By what standard do you call yourself good? By what standard can you face God and say, I have been good? You gave to the local charity? You helped the lady across the street? You worked for the soup kitchen or you were a Boy Scout leader or you worked with the women's club or the men's club or the old folks home or something or something or something? You did these good things and that's what earns you heaven? Have you kept God's law? And inevitably they say, well, hey, nobody's perfect.
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That's the problem.
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You think that's okay.
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You say nobody's perfect.
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Well, you think that's okay.
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Because the reality is, you're right.
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Nobody's perfect other than Christ.
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But what does God require? He requires that we be perfect.
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And the only way to be perfect is to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness that comes from within ourselves, but a righteousness which comes from God.
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That's the only way to be right.
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To be in Christ.
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If we are outside of Christ, then we are headed toward hell.
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And that's what Revelation 21.8 says.
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It says that all of these people, even liars, and you may think lying is a small sin.
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It is not in God's sight.
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It is from the Father of lies, who is Satan himself, and it is not a small thing.
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The reality is, all of us are liars at some point.
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All of us at some point have lied.
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All of us at some point have demonstrated our lack of commitment to the calling of God in our life, our lack of commitment to Christ.
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All of us have lied, and thus, as a result, all of us need Christ.
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There is not one person in this world, there is not one person that I have ever met who could say they have been completely and perfectly truthful from the day that they were born, and as a result, we all need a Savior.
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It's interesting that truthfulness is one of the few ethics that Christianity espouses that the world kind of respects.
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What I mean by that, not many people like to be called liars.
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In fact, often people get very angry when you insinuate that they are liars.
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Even people who commit the most heinous crimes, what do they say? Well, at least I admitted it.
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At least I didn't lie.
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I mention this because, as I come to a close, I want to just impress upon you this.
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Even though the world is consumed by deceit, there is something within all of us that knows that deceit is wrong.
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Even though the world is consumed with it, we all know that it's wrong.
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Whether we try to justify it, whether we try to figure out a way around it, whether we try to be like the Pharisees and create a system which allows it, we all know that it's wrong.
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We all know that deception is wrong.
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God has written that truth within our heart.
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Yet, with every day that passes, lies continue to increase.
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Deception is rampant in politics.
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Deception is rampant in advertising.
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It's rampant in relationships.
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And it's rampant even in the pulpit.
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And, beloved, it should not be so with us.
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Truthfulness is foundational to the Christian ethic.
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It begins with us who are called the church.
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Our yes should be yes.
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Our no should be no.
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We must be people of integrity, people of truth, people who can be counted on to stand by our word.
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That is who we must be.
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The term liar, the term deceiver, the term conniver, the term cheat, the term swindler should never be a term that is followed by a Christian.
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A conniving Christian, a deceitful Christian, a lying Christian, a cheating Christian.
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This is opposed to everything we are called to be.
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So, beloved, I stand before you today and I leave you with this challenge.
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If you have never heard the Gospel, and today you heard, hey, I am a person whose life has been marked by sin, I am a person who has lied, I am a person who has cheated, I am a person who is justly deserving of the wrath of God, and I need help.
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I want to tell you, there is help.
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There is salvation in Christ and in Him alone.
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And if you are a believer, if you are already converted to Christ, I lay this challenge before you.
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You should expect to live for Christ every day and seek to be a person whose yes is yes and no is no.
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You should seek to be a person of integrity and character because we are ambassadors for the One who came before us, the One who loved us, and the One who in Him was found no deceit.
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So again, I say, if you are an unbeliever, I call you to faith and repentance in Christ.
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And if you are a believer, I call you to a closer walk with Him.
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Let us pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to study Your Word.
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I pray that Your Word has been faithfully preached today and that Your people have been edified by it.
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I pray, O Lord, also that if there are those among us or those who will hear this on the broadcast, Lord, that if there is anyone who does not know the Gospel, that they have heard it today, that it will break their heart under the weight of their sin and that they will be drawn to You by Your powerful Holy Spirit.
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I thank You for this church.
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I thank You for the love that is demonstrated in this church and the grace and mercy that we share together as believers in Christ.
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And I pray, Lord, if there are those here who are uncertain about their salvation, whose hearts are aching because they feel insecure in their faith, that, Lord God, that they would reach out for prayer, that they would reach out for studying the Scripture and desiring to draw closer to You, so that they would have the confidence to call upon Your name and know that You are there for those who have called upon You in faith.
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We love You.
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We praise You.
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We give You all glory and honor in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Beloved, please stand as we sing our final song.
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If you have a need for prayer, please come as we sing.