[00:00:00] Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ lies hurt. They destroy and they can even kill in many places in South America if you're on a crowded bus and a woman yells out that a man has sexually assaulted her.
[00:00:30] They are pushed by the other passengers. Whether it's true or not, they won't stop to ask. The man is a dead man. And we have examples in the scriptures of how lies kill.
[00:00:46] Joseph of Neboth, who Jezebel had killed through the false testimony of the false witnesses so that him being dead she could get his vineyard for her husband Ahab, King Ahab.
[00:00:59] Lies hurt, they destroy, they can even kill. And so it's understandable that the Scripture teaches us and the church therefore confesses that we must avoid all lying and deceit under penalty of gods heavy.
[00:01:15] Heavy wrath, what is the penalty of gods heavy wrath for liars? Well look at your script. Look at the Bible chapter 21 of the book of Revelation and look at verse eight, 21 verse eight of Revelation but as for the cow would be the faithfulest, the detestable as for murderers, the sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters and all liars.
[00:01:44] All liars, their portions shall be will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur which is the second death. Liars go to hell. That's what God teaches. That's how bad lying is. There's no room in heaven. There's no room in the presence of God.
[00:02:05] For lies or for liars. Why? Well look what we confess there from the Scripture in lords day 43 lying in deceit of the devil's own works.
[00:02:26] They reflect the very character of the devil. If you look at John 44, sorry John 8 verse 44 that's a well known scripture which portrays who the devil is and how he's a liar. John 8 44 you are of your father the devil says Jesus to the leaders of the church.
[00:02:45] You are of your father the devil 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 there is no truth in him when he lies he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies.
[00:03:06] And so the Scripture sets before us as always a stark contrast between night and day between lying in deceit on the one hand and truth on the other. Between the devil as a father of lies and Jesus as the truth incarnate lies go with destruction and murder but the truth gives life.
[00:03:32] Now we were created not to reflect the character of the devil. Obviously we were created in the image of God and we have been recreated to reflect the image of Christ.
[00:03:46] And so why ought we to hate lying and hate deceit as the devil's own works because they reflect the wrong image. They reflect the character of the enemy and not the character of God. So to lie and to engage in deceit is that root and act of blasphemy.
[00:04:13] It's not who we are as Christians. Whenever we speak as human beings, we are either committing an act of worship as we speak the truth and reflect the character of God or we are committing an act of blasphemy as we speak lying and deceit and reflect the character of the devil.
[00:04:40] Now as I read John 844, you remember what Jesus said that the devil was a murderer from the beginning. Jesus doesn't mean to say that the devil was created as a murderer but he certainly doesn't mean that from the beginning of the world one of the very first things that happened after the creation was the fall of the devil when he became a liar and a murderer as a father.
[00:05:10] So he was a fallen angel. And so lying begins very, very soon after the creation was completed and it starts with words. The fall starts with words because the creation starts with words.
[00:05:37] Jesus 944, he spoke and it came to be God spoke the world the universe into existence. And we see that in John chapter 1 verse 1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
[00:05:54] He was in the beginning with God all things were made through him, all things were made through the word and without him, without the word was not anything made that was made.
[00:06:07] God spoke the universe into existence. The creation was built through the word and so the devil comes to destroy God's good creation with words.
[00:06:28] He questions Eve and says, did God really say he questions the truth and then he twists the truth. He says, you shall not die, you shall be like God.
[00:06:45] We have to understand that lies and truths are more than just mere sounds that we make when we speak words or write them on paper but that we live in a universe built on spoken truth.
[00:07:00] It has come into existence through spoken truth, all things that exist, all truth, all reality. Those things are what God says they are. They exist because God says they exist.
[00:07:20] They have character and shape and qualities and purpose that God says that they have. And truth for us in our lives is experienced when we acknowledge, speak and write whatever aligns with God spoken God created reality truth and reality go together.
[00:07:45] Sin is the opposite. Sin is twisting reality. It is perverting a part of God's good creation and it starts with the lie, the lie that Eve told herself.
[00:08:03] God said, but I don't care what God said. I say it's like this. I do it my way. What I say goes, I will create my reality according to my will to reflect my image and to seek my purposes.
[00:08:29] And so God said to Eve and Adam, don't eat that fruit. It will kill you. And he said, that's what you say. That's your truth. But my truth is that it looks good.
[00:08:47] It's a delight to the eyes. It is desirable to make one wise. And I agree with Satan, not with you. I agree with Satan. I will not surely die. I will be like God.
[00:09:04] And so telling ourselves the lie that what God says is not true is in the DNA of every sin. God says about sin, don't do that my child.
[00:09:16] Don't do that. It's not good for you. I love you. Don't do it. And we say, that's not true. It is good for me. I don't believe you. God, that's what we're saying.
[00:09:32] And every time we choose to sin, we think, God, you're a liar. You're really power, a liar.
[00:09:40] Now James warns us about this, about the self deception of sin. James chapter 1 verse 16, do not be deceived my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights.
[00:10:00] But sin deceives us. Sin is self deceit. And we say, well, God says this is not a good gift. It is not a perfect gift. It is not coming down from the father of lights. He says that desiring this will cause me to sin and lead to my death.
[00:10:23] But I think God's wrong. I think God is lying. I think this sin is good for me because it's so attractive and it's so desirable. I'm sure it is good for me.
[00:10:41] Now lying and deceiving ourselves of the devil's own works. They lead to our destruction. And when we bear false witness against our neighbor, we take that lying and deceiving which is part of our self deception and sin.
[00:10:57] We take that lying and deceiving, we weaponize it to destroy not just ourselves but to destroy our neighbor. Now if you look at the Old Testament Exodus 20, do you know me five? That's the two times we have the Ten Commandments in the Bible.
[00:11:13] In Exodus 20, you show not bear false witness against your neighbor. In Do you know me chapter five? You show not bear false witness against your neighbor. There's no difference in the English translation.
[00:11:25] But there is in the Hebrew. There are two different words used for false in the phrase false witness. In Exodus chapter 20, the word is false as in deceit. Do not give a witness or testimony of deceit of lies and the word there in Exodus 20 has to be false or fake. It doesn't fit with reality. It's not true.
[00:11:54] Then you go to do the one we chapter five. We're in the English. It looks exactly the same but there's a different word which if I translate it a little more literally, it would be do not bear a witness of vanity.
[00:12:13] The word uses the word which is the same as the word used in the third commandment. You should not take the name of the Lord you got in vain. That word, it's a word which describes something which is worthless, which is useless.
[00:12:32] And therefore also false. So both words Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 have to do with deceit and being fake and not being true. But Exodus 20 has the idea of deceit with overtones of worthlessness and Deuteronomy 5 has the idea of worthlessness with overtones of falsity. Those two things go together in the ninth commandment.
[00:12:55] Both words in the Old Testament scriptures are used to describe the idols. Those ones that are used to describe what idols are, they are deceit, they are fake, they are lies, they are useless, they are worthless, they are a scam, they might look good, they might sound good but they're good for nothing.
[00:13:16] And so that's kind of the feel, the semantic feel, the feel of meaning between those two words used in the ninth commandment.
[00:13:24] Lying and deceiving bring pain, they bring hurt, they can even bring death. And a false witness spreads lies about who someone is and what someone has done and that could sometimes as we've seen already not just destroy their reputation or destroy their career or their family, their relationships
[00:13:45] but can even destroy their life. It is the devil's own work and we ought to hate it.
[00:13:54] So God says in the scriptures and in the gospel and in the commandments, he says that's who you used to be. That's who you used to be.
[00:14:06] But I have delivered you. I am the Lord, your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I have delivered you from the Egypt of sin and lies.
[00:14:18] I have set you free to live the truth, to love the truth, to speak the truth. And just before Jesus in John chapter 8 says that the devil is a father of lies, he says in verse 31 of that chapter, if you abide in my word, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
[00:14:46] And in John chapter 17, just before the Lord Jesus goes to the cross and that last night before he was betrayed and he praised it high, priestly prayer in John chapter 17. He says in that prayer in verse 17 of chapter 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.
[00:15:07] And so the Bible makes a connection between the word of God and the truth of God. And Jesus says to us, to his people, to the disciples first and then through them to all of us.
[00:15:20] He says, you are sanctified in the truth. You are set apart from the lie for the truth. You are set apart. You are holy to know the truth.
[00:15:33] And the truth is the word of God, Jesus our Lord, the word which spoke creation into being, the word incarnate Jesus Christ, he is the truth, the word inscripturated, the word written down by which we come to know Jesus.
[00:15:50] Jesus Christ, that is the truth of God and the commandment calls us to love the truth which means to love Jesus and to love the scriptures.
[00:16:04] And we know him as the one who is the way, the truth and the life. And we know that to turn from him is to embrace the lie and death.
[00:16:17] We know that every ill, every misery, every evil stems from suppressing the truth in unrighteousness which is why I read Romans chapter 1.
[00:16:27] And you remember there in verse 18, as Paul describes how society has totally fallen into immorality and wickedness of every type. He begins by explaining why and how this came about.
[00:16:41] Because men suppressed the truth in unrighteousness there in verse 18, then look at verse 25, the exchange, the truth about God for a lie.
[00:16:54] And out of that comes all of the wickedness, the brokenness and the fallenness of a society of sinners.
[00:17:04] And as we read chapter 1, was 18 through to the end, did you recognize our culture? 2000 years after Paul wrote the words he wrote to the Romans,
[00:17:15] he might as well be describing North American or Western culture or the culture of the world around us.
[00:17:23] Now we can read Romans chapter 1, the second part of it that we read. And we can talk to him and say, well isn't the world terrible? And look at these people, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness and that's why they do all these sinful things.
[00:17:38] That's why I kept reading, I didn't stop at the end of the chapter because in chapter 2 Paul directs himself to the church, to God's people.
[00:17:49] And he says, you think these people are bad? Why are you judging them when that's the way you're living? When you don't love the truth, when you're suppressing it, when you're giving yourself over to sin.
[00:18:04] I'll send those people last week, Pastor. Why do you talk about sin so much? And the answer is very simple because the Bible does.
[00:18:19] Not talking about sin and worship. It's kind of like being in a hospital where they never talk about sickness and disease. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
[00:18:35] So this is right here, it's not Ken Whiskey saying that this is God talking to us. God is pointing out this to us, not me. Look at verse 8 of chapter 2. God is very stark in what he says to us through the apostle.
[00:18:54] Those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. There will be wrath and fury under penalty of God's heavy wrath.
[00:19:07] You love the lie. God will pour out his heart, anger and righteous judgment upon you in wrath and fury. Now look at the contrast there in verse 8 of chapter 2 of Romans.
[00:19:22] There are two groups of people in the world. There are only two options. You either obey the truth or you obey unrighteousness.
[00:19:33] There is no third way. And obeying unrighteousness is to live a life of lies, to love the lie, to hate the truth, to love the devil's own works.
[00:19:51] And that means that if I choose to live the lie, even though maybe I can use a lot of whitewash, and I can look really good, like a good person, I can maybe even be a preacher standing on a pulpit. But if I'm living a lie, it doesn't matter what people think.
[00:20:15] People may think I'm a great Christian. That doesn't matter. What matters is that God will come upon me in wrath and fury. That's a frightening thing.
[00:20:30] And so Christians are called to hate lies. Because lies don't reflect reality. They don't reflect who God is and what he has made and what he has done and how his world works and what has really happened.
[00:20:46] Christians are people that love the truth. And so, as the Catechism reminds us, that means we will not speak false testimony, a testimony of deceit, of lies or of worthlessness.
[00:21:04] Even if giving that testimony means that we will derive personal benefit, we will not.
[00:21:12] Death first, but we will not commit this sin to bear false witness. We will twist no one's words.
[00:21:26] That's who we are when Christ comes into our hearts, when the Spirit of God is the one who controls our mind and our words. We twist no one's words. Why? Because that's the works of the devil. That's not who I am.
[00:21:45] I serve the truth in current. How often do we do that when we are in an argument, either online or in real life?
[00:21:55] And we take something the other person said and conveniently leave out any kind of factor which stands in their favor or which gives some kind of support to the argument and we just twist it a little bit to make them look foolish.
[00:22:10] And God says, that's not the way I want you to be.
[00:22:15] We don't gossip. That means we don't share words that are worthless. They may even be true.
[00:22:23] We can break this commandment by speaking truths. You can say true things about people to other people and speaking those truths doesn't build up anyone, it doesn't glorify God but speaking those truths about other people to other people hurts them, hurts the reputation makes other people think less of them.
[00:22:41] And God says, that's not who you are my people. You don't gossip.
[00:22:46] And you know, it's slander. Slander of course is not just whispering truths or lies amongst ourselves.
[00:22:55] But slandering is where we're spreading evil reports about people.
[00:23:03] You know, these are things which are not just the devil's own works. They are right there embedded in our old nature. Our old nature loves this stuff. Our old nature loves sin. Right? We knew that because when sin presents itself we say no and then our old nature says, oh yes, I like sin. I like doing bad stuff. It's fun. It's attractive.
[00:23:25] That's the same with gossip and slander as well. The Proverbs say that gossip is like delicious morsels that go down into the innermost parts. I remember years back I was jogging with a neighbor who was an elder in another church in another province and we stopped in chatted for a bed and he told me the story about someone who had fallen into a terrible sin.
[00:23:52] I figured what it was thankfully. It was a terrible sin and looking back, I should have stopped him right away. I shouldn't have been hearing that because it made no difference for me to know it was being dealt with by that man's church.
[00:24:07] But I remember the face of this elder who's talking to me. And as he told me these very salacious details.
[00:24:18] He couldn't help but grin. He was a God be man. He was a God be man. But it was so delicious to just say these incredibly salacious details about this wicked sin of this other person.
[00:24:33] He was sinning and I was too. And God says, I don't want you to be like that. That's not why I gave you the ability to talk and to use words. Not for that.
[00:24:44] It's the devil's own work. And then we don't condemn or join in condemning people rashly and unheard. And how easy that is today with cancel culture all you need on social media as a like and a share and you can destroy a person's reputation and their life with a click.
[00:25:03] And suddenly goes viral and everywhere we piles on and the person is canceled. And it's real easy to do especially when we don't like the person anyway.
[00:25:12] And when we think it's probably true.
[00:25:17] God says, I don't want you to be like that. That's not who you are. That's the DNA. That's the character of the devil. That's not you.
[00:25:27] You are conformed to the image of Christ. You speak truth, you love truth, you spread truth and you hate the lie.
[00:25:38] And so the catacombs confesses from the scripture. That's not who I want to be. I must love the truth. I must speak and confess it honestly.
[00:25:46] I must be known as a truth lover, as a truth teller. As someone who defends and promotes their neighbors honor and reputation. I'm going to be known by the grace of God as a person that when somebody's talking me and then they walk away.
[00:26:00] They know that I'm not going to say anything behind their back.
[00:26:07] And that starts with the church brothers and sisters. Ephesians 4.25. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members, one of another.
[00:26:20] We learn and we practice truth telling and truth loving in the family of God. And that begins at home.
[00:26:28] This is the instruction of parents. Parents, one of the key things that we need to instruct our children is that lying as the devil's own work and when our children are brought up to understand that no matter what they've done, even if it's a wicked thing.
[00:26:47] We can understand that they can speak the truth to Momodad. And that Momodad will say, listen, that was wrong and there are consequences. It will work through them together with you because we love you.
[00:26:57] And there is forgiveness in Christ but let it be that our children are not obliged by our parenting to pretend that they're perfect so that when they've made a great error or committed a great sin that they cover it up with lies and make it even worse.
[00:27:16] The truth telling is something we ought to be focusing on in our parenting and making possible in the way that we parent and discipline and love and encourage our children.
[00:27:29] Ephesians 4.15, rather speaking the truth in love, we ought to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with it.
[00:27:40] It is equipped when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. You see the connection when we speak the truth in love, we grow.
[00:27:50] We build, things get better. That's how God made the world to be. That when the truth is spoken, good things come into existence and they are ordered and developed and made more developed and more beautiful and more glorious.
[00:28:07] And that's why we hate lies because lies do the opposite. Lies don't build up, lies destroy. Lies and deceit corrode like acid, lies and deceit undo the creation.
[00:28:21] They fight against creation, they twist creation, they break creation and they bring brokenness and hate and death.
[00:28:29] And the reason we as God's children and followers of the Lord Jesus love truth is because it builds up. It builds order and life and love.
[00:28:43] And so as we come to the end of the exposition of this law's day, there are two applications that I wanted to leave with you.
[00:28:53] The first one is this, that God's word is total truth. God's word is total truth. Jesus has sanctified them in the truth. Your word is truth.
[00:29:08] And so for the last, let's say 300 years, the culture and philosophy has been telling us that since the Enlightenment it has been telling us that there are two different levels of truth.
[00:29:23] There is the opera story where there's faith truth and subjective truth, what you believe.
[00:29:31] There's real truth which is science and that's on the ground floor of the house of truth.
[00:29:37] And so what the world has been telling us is Christians for hundreds of years, is that listen, you can have your truth as Christians, you can believe what you want.
[00:29:44] Just keep it to yourself, keep it in your little heart and talk about it amongst yourselves at your little Bible studies but do not bring that into the world that doesn't belong here.
[00:29:56] Because in the real world, the truth is science.
[00:30:01] Well see here's a problem that we have taken this over Bios Mosuz. It has seeped into the church, into our hearts, into our minds and that's wrong.
[00:30:10] We have many gods, the pantheum of gods of our modern times. And one of those gods is science. There is the religion of science, the scriptures of this god, our peer reviewed research.
[00:30:26] And you can say well the Bible says that like people would you please shut up.
[00:30:31] Science, where's the peer reviewed data? Where's the peer reviewed research? You cannot bring your god and his claims into real life. Be quiet. Keep it to yourself.
[00:30:45] Brothers and sisters, as God calls us to be truth lovers and truth tellers and truth livers.
[00:30:52] People who live the truth let us not be intimidated when the world tells us these things. This is God's world and it all holds together in Christ the Word of God.
[00:31:06] We cannot and they cannot limit God's truth through religious matters because all truth is God's truth. And when an unbeliever observes a truth, a reality and speaks about it, writes about it and does research on it.
[00:31:19] He bows the knee to Christ because that truth and that reality exists because of Christ and in Christ and through Christ and it is held together by the Word of his power.
[00:31:35] You cannot have science without truth, the truth of God because science studies the very world that was spoken into existence through the Word.
[00:31:47] And so in the 17th century, the great scientists that began modern science, they made great discoveries because they expected the world to be true.
[00:31:58] So you're placed that was reflecting that it was created by God as a place of order and design and beauty and harmony. And in as much as science is true, he recognizes God's fingerprints in the complex beauty of the cell and the glory of the galaxies.
[00:32:17] The commitment that the world has to knowledge apart from God is a religious and an idolatrous commitment. And I'll give you an example of how they cannot sustain it.
[00:32:31] I've perhaps used this in a certain of certainly uses in categories and before. I was watching a show on animals in Africa, the scientists were talking about the giraffe and how the heart of the giraffe works.
[00:32:47] And of course the giraffe is a very long neck so the heart has to pump very, very powerfully to get the blood up to the head. But of course if the giraffe bends down to chew on the grass, then suddenly that pump which is pushing with immense pressure is aided by gravity and if things don't change real quick in the pressure, that giraffe's head is going to blow right off.
[00:33:08] And so the way that the heart is made and the way that the blood flow is made in the giraffe is that that can switch very quickly to make sure that that pressure isn't the same when the head goes down.
[00:33:21] And this fellow, the scientist was explaining it and he said, you know, this is on video. He says, you know, that's incredible design.
[00:33:30] And then he got this deer in the headlights looking at his colleagues, free sheepishly. He said, I mean, incredible evolution.
[00:33:39] Despite himself, he recognized the truth. What does the Bible say? Let God be true and every man a liar.
[00:33:49] What does the Psalms say put no trust in kings or princes or man however wise? So it behooves Christians. It's appropriate for Christians to have a healthy skepticism when it comes to the claims of the modern religion, the idol tree of science in our time.
[00:34:07] A healthy skepticism. Richard Horton, the editor of the prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, the most prestigious medical journal in 2015 wrote this.
[00:34:21] He's still the editor today. The case against science is straightforward. Much of the scientific literature perhaps half may simply be untrue.
[00:34:35] That was in 2015 and 2009, Dr. Marsja Angel of the Harvard Medical School, she wrote this. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published or to rely on the judgment of trust in the scientific literature.
[00:34:48] I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
[00:34:58] These are editors, respectively of the preeminent medical journals in Europe and North America. And by the time I read the book, I was able to read the book, I was able to read it.
[00:35:08] I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
[00:35:19] These are editors, respectively of the preeminent medical journals in Europe and North America. And both of them to continue these articles to expose corruption in science.
[00:35:32] Financial interests, fudging results and fudging data to fit predetermined outcomes, either for financial interest or for career interest.
[00:35:45] And if you're surprised by this, you shouldn't be. Because we're Christians, so we know what the Bible says about the world. The world is corrupt. We live in a world where the truth is suppressed.
[00:35:57] By definition, we ought to expect lies and deception, not truth. By God's grace he puts the brakes on. By God's grace the lights are on. By God's grace society still works.
[00:36:08] By God's grace is still good medical stuff being done. And thank God for that because we're beneficiaries of medical treatments and surgeries that do work and are real blessing.
[00:36:20] But we have to understand that this is a miracle.
[00:36:25] Because the same health system that brought our brother Luke back from the dead.
[00:36:32] By God's grace that same health system tells us that a baby is a clump of cells if you don't want it.
[00:36:40] That same health system says that a boy can change into a girl with the right amount of hormones and by mutilating and sterilizing surgery.
[00:36:49] As much as the health system our governments and universities teach the same lies.
[00:36:54] On top of it they teach that the universe came into existence by random chance. Life came into being by random chance that humans evolved by random chance.
[00:37:05] And so we're living in a world where the sisters that is confused and lost in lies and falsehood.
[00:37:13] And we know the truth. Don't be intimidated by those who use research to tell you that what God says is not true.
[00:37:25] You see the Bible says physical discipline is administered by a father who loves his child as the Bible says.
[00:37:36] The world comes at you and says but peer reviewed research shows that physical discipline harms children.
[00:37:43] Surely you must believe the peer reviewed research and of course the peer reviewed research takes biblical discipline and abuse and lumps it all together and tries to intimidate us with those lies.
[00:37:55] Don't give it to it.
[00:37:57] When the world is coming at us with so called research about homosexual marriage, that it's natural or normal.
[00:38:03] Or when the doctor pressures you to give your young teen daughter a vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease and you have questions about that biblically.
[00:38:11] It's not they do not have a corner on truth.
[00:38:15] We live by a truth more fundamental and more profound than any human knowledge or science.
[00:38:23] We live by the principles of the infallible word of God and everything that we're told by the universities and by the medical system, by the government.
[00:38:30] We filter through that grid. What does God say?
[00:38:36] Because God's truth is not just for Sundays, not just for the upper story of knowledge, not just for our little hearts and a little Bible studies.
[00:38:46] God's truth is total truth. It speaks to every part of life and every decision.
[00:38:54] And if we know that truth, we cannot be silent but we must testify to it.
[00:38:59] If we live in a world in their lives, they're very eager to share and to evangelize.
[00:39:04] You come into a room and before you know it, they're telling you all about the wonders of transgenderism or how evolution is so true.
[00:39:11] They're evangelizing all the time and just so open about it and we sit there thinking, oh that's really not true but I don't dare say anything.
[00:39:19] Why? If we remain silent, we bear false witness.
[00:39:24] We are not to stand by silently while people are flogging damned lies.
[00:39:31] We must speak up, we must speak truth, we must know the word, we must know the book of creation and if you compare the lies of the world to the truth of God,
[00:39:45] the lies of the world will always not fit. They won't fit with reality and we can and we must point that out.
[00:39:55] That's the first thing that I want to believe with you, the second thing is a little shorter and that is this that God's word and God's world are real truth.
[00:40:04] God's word is total truth, God's word and God's world are real truth.
[00:40:09] Just a few days ago open AI came out with their video generating platform so it's not just photos anymore but you can produce videos which approximate a real world look.
[00:40:25] You can take somebody's voice, you can sample it, you can make a fake video which looks real, you can add the person in it, looks like a real person,
[00:40:35] it can speak in their voice and you can make anybody do anything you want. That's where we're getting.
[00:40:41] So we have a world increasingly filled with the bright colorful pixels representing as reality things which never existed, never happened,
[00:40:51] never real and never true. It used to be that if you had a photo or video that was evidence. Nowadays more and more we have no clue if it is true or not, it could just be AI generated.
[00:41:03] And that means amongst other things that we need to go back to the Bible and the Bible standard for truth is this, not if there's a photo or a video or recording but the Bible's measure of truth is that it is established in the mouth of true or three witnesses.
[00:41:19] That's where we're going to have to go back in a world full of AI generated untruths. Now AI is an interesting tool and it's a helpful servant but it's a dangerous master.
[00:41:29] The devil wants to draw us away from reality, away from truth. He wants to draw us into the world of the unreal, a digital world where you are God, where you can craft everything the way you want it.
[00:41:43] You can make your reality the way you want it to be. It's all fake. It's incredibly powerfully attractive.
[00:41:51] Men crave and lust for thousands of women who never existed while they fail to seek out a real flesh and blood daughter of God to marry or if they are married, their wives are ignored and neglected because the husband is on the crack cocaine or the fentanyl of digital and AI generated porn.
[00:42:12] Mothers can spend hours building farms and gardens with pixels which produce virtual harvest while their own children in real life sit there hungry and neglected.
[00:42:25] Rather than this is the world, the way it's going drives us back to the word. It drives us back to the command to love the truth and hate the lie and as Christians we say I will not live by lies.
[00:42:40] I will not invite deceit into my heart or my home. I will not embrace the fake Instagram life. I will live in reality. I will live in truth. I will live in honesty that is good for me, that is good for my children, that is good for my family, that is good for my neighbor and it glorifies God.
[00:42:59] That is one of the most powerful ways of truly witnessing the gospel to the world, built in sisters, to live the truth. To be real, to be honest, to be down to earth, to be trustworthy, to keep your word, to speak well of others, to speak the truth in love and to reflect the image of God.
[00:43:23] The only way to live that kind of a life is to be rooted in Christ, the truth. sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth, Amen.