Know, Speak and Live Truth

I know that all of us appreciate the fact that God kind of outlines things for us throughout the year. And as I mentioned earlier, we've gone through the time of the Spring Holy Days. And so God has actually begun us on a new year. This is the first month of the year in the Hebrew calendar, or at least it was. I'm not sure whether it's over yet or not, but we know that between the first month and between the seventh month, when we have the fall festivals, we know that during that time that God leads us through, in a sense, a training. Now, He's training us the rest of the time as well, but He leads us through focusing on different aspects of His plan. And the early Holy Days that we've just celebrated focus on our need to come out of sin, and the fact that we need to be engaged in struggling. See, is it bad to struggle? I think sometimes we get upset or we get frustrated, or we may feel discouraged, because we're struggling with this or that problem that we identify in our lives, or we're struggling with a given trial that we're going through. Is it bad to be struggling against sin? Well, I'm going to say the answer to that is no. The answer to the struggle against sin is no. Or at least, you know, is it bad to be struggling against sin? The answer would be no, because if we're not struggling, then are we really growing? If we're not struggling, are we really making progress? Are we simply floating along? And so, I simply point this out in that God begins us on this coming year with a focus on doing His work, which we all need to be engaged in doing, but also that work, of course, is proclaiming the Kingdom of God. But then we also are overcoming. And in overcoming aspects in our lives that we see need to be changed, you know, we should struggle.

It's actually the ongoing life of a Christian to be struggling. That's okay.

Whenever we're not struggling, we might say we're simply floating. We're simply just drifting. And, you know, that's not really where we want to be. We might feel that that's peaceful, but we may not be making much progress. I want us to look and begin the sermon today in Acts chapter 5.

In Acts chapter 5, you have an account of the Apostle Peter. Of course, this is very early. In the record that we have of the New Testament Church. The New Testament Church of God began on the day of Pentecost, as we read about in Acts chapter 2. The coming of the Holy Spirit in a magnificent way. The impression that was made not only on Peter, but all of the apostles. And then upon the thousands of people who heard them. And that God added, God drew into the church. And we see in the first few chapters here of Acts how that those people, they were excited, they were uplifted, they were encouraged, they would meet together, they would eat together, they would pray together. And they, in some ways, even had things in common. They would try to help each other with the physical needs that they had. You read about that in the last part of chapter 4. And you even see, it says in verse 32 of chapter 4, the whole group of those believed, the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and of one soul and no one claimed private ownership of any possession, but everything they owned was held in common. Now that's not a common thing that we do all over. And yet that was what they did in that particular time, in that setting. And it even says, if we go up down to verse 36, there was a Levite named native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas. And so here we see the first time I believe Mark Barnabas is pointed out, as later to be a traveler with the apostle Paul, an apostle himself, being able to do a magnificent work, and clearly a man who seemed to have a lot of compassion, a lot of encouragement. He was called the encourager, but it says Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. He sold a field that belonged to him, and he brought that money to the apostles, and he laid it at the apostles' feet. Now again, that was a voluntary something he chose to do. That's not what God asked all of us to do with everything that we have. That's just simply what they did at that time. But my focus is on the first part of chapter 5. The first part of chapter 5 deals with an interaction between Peter and Ananias and Sapphira. Let's read through this, verse 1.

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property with his wife's knowledge. He kept back some of the proceeds, and he brought only a part and laid it at the apostles' feet. Ananias, Peter, asks, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? And to keep back part of the proceeds of the land. So this was a question that Peter posed to Ananias. And Peter went ahead to clarify. Now, when Ananias...or excuse me, I'm jumping down. Verse 4. While it remained unsold, Peter instructed, did it not remain yours? It was clearly yours, and after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? You could do whatever you wanted to with it.

How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to men, but to God.

And now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. This had to be a tremendous shock that he would learn that he was in this case exposed. And in this case, again, the outcome was very negative. And yet it says, great fear seized all who heard about it.

And young men came and wrapped up his body and carried him out and buried him. And so, you know, you see in this account an incident that certainly is a little bizarre. It's a little unusual or out of the ordinary. And yet there is a very important point that we learn from this. And in verse 7, it says, after an interval of about three hours, his wife came in Sapphira, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.

She said, yes, that was a price. And then Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they're going to carry you out as well.

And immediately she fell down at his feet and died. And when the young men came in, they found her dead. And so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And in verse 11, great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things. Now, you know, that account, as you read through it, in some ways you could say, that sounds kind of harsh. That sounds kind of harsh, that the death penalty was executed in this case, and it wasn't that Peter killed them, but God allowed them to die in this case. And the example is here written for our admonition. And clearly, you know, you see several things pointed out here that we need to gain insight from. And I know at times, I've read through that, and I've tried to explain it, that, well, this is pointing out lying to the Holy Spirit. So, you know, clearly that's kind of what it says. And yet, somehow, God reveals this deception to Peter and taught numerous lessons to the church. So what are those lessons? What are the lessons that God is pointing out? Now, I think when I think of it, you know, well, this is about lying to the Holy Spirit. That doesn't really maybe mean a great deal to me. It doesn't point out anything specifically as much as it should. But clearly, you see in verse 4, Peter said, while it remained unsold, the property that you sold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? He said this was entirely voluntary.

You decided to follow the example that others were doing of selling a property and giving the money to the apostles, to the church, and letting them distribute it as they needed or what they felt the need was. And after it was sold, were those proceeds not at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? See, what I think this incident is talking about is clearly the fact that God sees everything. And God knows not only our actions, but He knows our heart. And in this case, he was pointing out that Ananias and Sapphira not only did not tell the truth, they lied to Peter in this case. But what was really going on was that they were living a deception. They agreed together to try to put something over on Peter in this case.

And again, in this case, God didn't allow that to happen. Now, if some of you try to lie to the ministry, then doubtful that I'd be able to figure it out. I mean, unless God just happened to point that out. And yet, the real lesson, I think, from this is dealing with our own lives, dealing with our integrity and honesty toward God. Because that's clearly what Ananias and Sapphira failed in. They failed, and of course they were an example that we could think about. Certainly, one lesson that true Christians would learn from reading this account is that we need to know, we need to speak, and we need to live the truth. That's the title, Mr. Jackson. No, speak, and live the truth. See, that's where Ananias and Sapphira failed. They were trying to pull something on God. They were not perceptive to the fact that, you know, God sees everything. Now, it would appear they were new Christians. Everybody was a new Christian at that time, so they were learning, or the whole group was learning. But see, clearly, you know, we need to know and speak and live the truth. Each of us should live lives of integrity and honesty. In essence, we actually live in truth. That's what we're to do. So, I think it's good for each of us as we begin this year and as we, again, struggle with our own sins.

How well are we doing in this area of Christian responsibility, living in truth?

Now, I know all of us realize that we live in a satanic world of deception. We've come to understand that. We certainly come to believe that. We see that in almost everything around us. Lying is an accepted way of life. It is promoted. It is basically not even denigrated. Clearly, and unfortunately, we've been, what can I say, we've been hammered for months and months and years and years now with the political arena and, you know, the ongoing election process here in the U.S. Seems like it doesn't get over and then it starts again. And yet, what do we see promoted? Well, politicians who are not very high on the trust level. Politicians who, in essence, you know, say one thing one day and something else the next, and many times blending statements so that nothing really is believable. You just wonder, well, what will the correction be? How will they walk that back? You know, that's the way the news people talk about it. And of course, all of us, I guess, have to see that to some degree if we watch any kind of television or listen to the radio. And if you don't, then you're really missing out on some useless drivel because, I mean, that's the way I look at it because, you know, I believe, you know, God's going to let whoever is going to be in a responsible role here in this country and I think he's allowed that for some time now. And so I don't know exactly where that's heading as far as an election, but certainly you can't really say politicians promote telling the truth. And unfortunately, you even have the news people, you know, the press, they're bringing up now, oh, we're going to fact check this. We're going to go through and we're going to analyze whatever it was so and so said and we're going to see if any of it is true. We're going to check the facts. And again, maybe that's useful in a certain limited way, but that doesn't seem to really be necessary except in this world when, you know, lying is so prevalent. It is just a way of life. People do not know any better or they are affected by it. And brethren, we might be affected by it too because public censure no longer discourages lying. That demand is going to have to come from us. That's going to have to come from within. And of course, people routinely interject deceit into their relationships.

That's pretty obvious in many, many situations where you find groups, you know, not able to cooperate with one another, marriages falling apart because of deception. Actually, in often cases, covering up glaring sins. And, you know, even, and I've got part of why I began to focus on this was I bought a, I don't know whether you noticed or not, but the handle fell off my briefcase.

Because I carried too much stuff in there. And Pat said, why do you have all this stuff in here? And well, I haven't gone through it and thrown away what I didn't need, which, you know, I do need some of that stuff, but I don't need all of it. But if I have all of it, then I always, you know, can always try to figure out where I put it. Maybe. But my handle fell off the briefcase because it broke. And I thought, well, that shouldn't happen. And then I had to buy another handle.

So thankfully, I was able to find something on the Internet. It looked like it would work. And so I think it did. And I purchased this from the Skeckert company, Skeckert.com. And they had exactly what I wanted. They could get it in the color and, you know, make it look reasonably close. And yeah, what really impressed me, and this is in connection with the fact that many businesses display amazing creativity in camouflaging deceit when they advertise their products.

Now, I think all of us probably have suffered that abuse on us because you can't hardly buy anything without wondering whether whatever is advertised is actually, you know, you can see a picture of it. You know, you can see this with every McDonald's advertisement. I've never got a hamburger. It looks exactly like the really good one, the really thick one, the really juicy one, the one with a big piece of tomato or lettuce or cheese on it. You know, it's always kind of scrunched.

And so, you know, when I say that businesses display amazing creativity and camouflaging deceit when they advertise, I think all of us know that. But I thought this was interesting because I got this new handle and it works just fine and I really like it. It's better than the other thing that I was trying to use in the meantime, until I could get this. But this is what I focused on. Down at the bottom of the in the small print, it says a word about shipping and handling fees.

It says, as manufacturers, we set the retail price of our products and we could easily ship for free by just building the cost of shipping and handling into the total price and letting you believe that you are getting free shipping with your purchase.

But we respect your intelligence. And we have chosen to be upfront by showing or billing these costs separately rather than playing the free shipping game with you. Now, I read that and I thought, now, that seems pretty clear. That seems pretty upfront. They think that people can figure out this game that you do actually play, I think, in many of the type of things you might buy on the internet and with the shipping and handling.

I think you probably should know kind of what that is or I always want to find out how much does it cost. And then you can decide whether or not you want it. But I just point that out because, as we all know, we live in a society where deception is prevalent. It is not promoted to be honest and have integrity, at least for the most part. I'm sure there are people who do try to do that and wish to do that. And yet, many, many times, that isn't the case. And, of course, we understand that Jesus described, and as he was talking to the Pharisees in John chapter 8, he told them, you know, you're the religious leaders here among the people of Judah in the area where he interacted.

And he says, you're deceived. You've been deceived. Let's go to John chapter 8. John chapter 8, he was talking to the Pharisees and, of course, they answered him in verse 39. They said, Abraham is our Father. And Jesus says, if you were Abraham's children, then you would be doing what Abraham did. But you're trying to kill me, a man who's told you the truth that I heard from God. And this is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your Father does. And they said to him, we are not illegitimate children.

We have one Father, God Himself. Now, they were misinformed. They had been deceived long before as not only that generation of Pharisees that dealt with Jesus, but as people going back to Adam and Eve were told a lie. They were told a lie by the devil. They were told a lie by Satan who wanted them to believe, well, you won't surely die. And that's what they were told. And yet that's what God said. He says, if you sin, you will die. You're a disposable model. You are subject to the penalty of disobedience.

And so all of us as human beings from Adam and Eve, you know, we are under that same deception. And here Jesus said to the Pharisees in verse 42, if God were your Father, you would love me because I came from God. And now I'm here and I did not come on my own, but He sent me. Why don't you understand what I'm saying? Why don't you understand what I'm saying? It's because you cannot accept my word. You are from your Father, the devil, and you choose to do your Father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and He simply does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in Him. When He lies, He speaks according to His own nature, for He is a liar, and He is the Father of lies.

So that's really what I'm wanting us to be reminded of. I know you know that. We want to be reminded of the fact that this whole world has been deceived, and all of us as people have been deceived. And all of us suffer from a nature that is not only deceivable, but in some ways continues in the deception. We need to be able to see what it is that God wants for us. And in essence, there is an understanding we want to have that we live in this world, and we're going to, He says in John 17, they're going to be in the world. I just want you to protect them. Help them in their struggle against the fallacies of this world.

So as I mentioned to you, God requires that we come to know the truth.

He requires that we truly speak the truth. And He also wants us to live in truth. So those are going to be the three points that I'm going to focus on here briefly. I think it's amazing, you know, whenever you say the truth, that can have varying levels of, what, varying capacities. You know, you can say, I've got on brown shoes. Whether that's true or not, you can figure it out by looking at my shoes. You know, they're brown. So you could say, well, that statement was true.

Or you can say, I have a green tie. And all of you could think, well, he doesn't know what he's, he's not able to figure out what color it is.

And yet, you know, whenever the Bible uses the term, the truth, what is God referring to? What is Jesus referring to when He, in talking to the Pharisees, says, I'm of my Father, and I'm telling the truth. See, what Jesus was doing was pointing out it didn't make any difference how the Pharisees determined what was true or not. They needed to use Jesus as the source. They needed to use the Word of God as the source of what is true. We can't just rely on our own nature to tell us what is true, because Jeremiah 17 verse 9 describes how that the human heart is deceitful.

In the King James it says it's desperately wicked. Some of the other translations make that sound a little more compatible, but it really is simply saying that human beings tend not to be truthful because of the deception. And we come to know the truth when we base our lives on the Word of God, and when we understand how that the Bible is revealing a future, a wonderful future called the Kingdom of God, a wonderful family called the Family of God, and that that family that we would like to be a part of is not a family of liars. It is a family of people who identify with the truth, those who believe the truth, those who love the truth, and those who focus their attention and mind on knowing the truth of God. In Numbers 23 verse 19, this is just one verse that I'm going to only read briefly here, and there are several other verses we could go to, and in essence you're kind of pulling these out of whatever the story is. And yet in this case, it says in verse 18 of Numbers 23, Balaam uttered this oracle, and it says in verse 19, God is not a human being, that he should lie, or immortal, that he should change his mind.

Has he promised something? Well, he will do it. Has he spoken? Will he not fulfill it? See, this was just making a statement about the difference between man and God.

Men tend to identify with the deception. We tend to, you know, we live in it. It's all around us. It's everywhere. It is common for people to be false. It's common for people to live in deception, and we don't want to allow that to affect us because we have the hope of being in God's family, which is a family of truth. And so, you know, we want not only to know the truth, we want to be, and we're in the process, actually the message. If we take a look at Ephesians chapter 1, the message that we proclaim is we proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God. The message that we proclaim in Ephesians chapter 1, you see a, in essence, somewhat of a lengthy description of the message that the church is to proclaim by Paul. But I want to break into Ephesians chapter 1. He's talking about the mystery of God. It's talking about the plan of God, God's purpose. In verse 13 in Christ, in him, you also, when you had heard the word of truth, see, where do we get something we can truly rely on or we can truly believe? That's going to come from the word of God, the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. God's message is that we can have eternal life, but he wants us to put away lying and deceit and deceptiveness and actually live in truth. That's our way of life. That's what a Christian way of life should be. In him and Jesus also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, you had believed in him and you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.

See, when God brought us to an awareness of our need for Jesus Christ in our lives, when he brought us to an understanding of repentance, then we saw ourselves differently. We realize, well, the word of God explains what my heart is like. It's deceitful. It's deceptive.

It's rather cunning. It likes to appear even as Ananias and Sapphira. It likes to appear good.

And yet, we all know that that isn't always the case. We all know that there's a level of deception that we continue to recognize and repent of.

So God requires that we know the truth that comes from his divine Word. And, of course, we know that one of the Ten Commandments says that we're supposed to speak the truth. You know, the Ninth Commandment, if you read it in Exodus 20 or in Deuteronomy 5, it says, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Now, there's more to it than just that direct statement. And yet, whenever we think about the Ten Commandments being God's directives to his commands to tell us, in essence, even to describe to us what sin is, what's he required, what's he want. Well, he doesn't want us following Satan's deceit and lies that leads to death. He wants us to identify with his loving, caring, truthful family. And that goes down to the core of our being. It goes down to our heart and our mind.

And then, of course, our words. But we have to say sometimes our words are not truthful.

Sometimes we're shading things. And, you know, whenever we're shading things, the Holy Spirit ought to convict us to say, yeah, you know, you're wrong. And whenever I do that, I'm wrong. And I have to see that. I have to, in a sense, not only see that, I have to hate that, even as you can read numerous verses here. If we look at Proverbs chapter, let's go to chapter 12.

Proverbs chapter 12, how does God view speaking the truth?

Proverbs 12 verse 22 says, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.

Well, that's pretty clear. He wants us to tell the truth that those who act faithfully are His delight. You know, He really is interested in us coming to see ourselves as He does. And, of course, you read, if we go back to chapter 6, verse 16, there are six things that the Lord hates.

Verse 17, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in the brethren or in the family. Say, what does God hate? Well, He hates for us to identify with Satan's deceptions in this world. And so, it's very clear, you know, that God hates lying. I guess we have to simply ask, do I? Do I hate that? Do I realize that whenever I'm not fully truthful that, you know, that I've, you know, I'm not identifying with God?

And, you know, do I hate it enough to stop doing it? Not only to ask for forgiveness, which God does extend, and He straightens that back up, but He wants us to see how important it is to be truthful, how important, how significant that is. And so, is lying repugnant to you?

You know, actually what we find if we're deceitful, that gnaws on your mind.

When you're not truthful, you know it, I think, because of the help of the Spirit of God, and when you're doing something that is not entirely upright, then you know it. And yet, God wants us, you know, to get away from that deceit and to become fully truthful.

And so, we not only want to know the truth, which has to do with, I guess, there are many proportions of that, is what I was trying to think of. You know, the truth overall is that God wants us in His family, and that we can depend on the Word of God, and we can depend on Jesus Christ, in that He says He is the way and the truth and the life. He can lead us. He can help us be truthful, but we need to bring that to Him. And then finally, you know, He requires us to live the truth. He wants us to know it, to speak it, and not to be deceitful. That was what Ananias and Sapphira were struggling with. They tried to perpetuate or perpetrate a deception upon Peter. And God, in this case, made it known. But see, it wasn't just what they said, it wasn't just what, wasn't that they sold some property, it wasn't anything wrong with that. It wasn't, you know, they could have sold it for $3,000 and given the apostles $300 or $30, and it would have been okay. But see, they got mixed up, and they clearly were trying to pull something. They were being deceitful. And in many ways, they were misrepresenting the facts and clearly deceitful. So here in Ephesians 4, in Ephesians 4, and Dr. Hasselton went over this out of Colossians in the last day of Unleavened Bread up in Kansas City. But I'll go over it, at least in part, here in Ephesians 4. In verse 17, Paul's discussing the difference between the old man and the new man and how we want to be clothed in righteousness. Verse 17, or this is what I affirm and insist on in the Lord, you must no longer live as the Gentiles live in the futility of their minds. He says they are darkened in their understanding, being cut off, having been alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. And they have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way that you learn Christ. So here he was talking to a church that had a number of Gentiles in it. He says, this is the background you've come out of, you know, the people that you are familiar with and that you relate to and that you interact with, perhaps. You've got to be different. That's the way you were. And God wants you to be different. He wants you to be truthful. He says, that's not the way you learn Christ. Actually, you see the description there in verses 18 and 19 is, as in a sense, having lost a certain sensitive conscience.

That's, you know, in a sense, I think that's be the way that most people would have to be described in this world today. You know, they are so bombarded with deception and lies that it's hard to separate, you know, what's right, what's not. Well, I can tell you what's right. It's right here. It's in the book. We can base our lives on the Word of God because that is where we get the truth. But here he describes the Gentiles that made up a part of the church there, at least, as having come out of a group that had been cut off from God, like everybody else had, but, you know, they were even desensitized to doing the right thing. He says, that is not the way, in verse 20, that you learn Christ. For surely you have heard about Him, and you were taught in Him, as truth is in Jesus, you were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt, deluded by its lusts. So even being deluded is easy to do. It's almost like, you know, falling off a log in the middle of the river. You know, it's a nice round log, nice smooth round log. You can fall off the log real easy. But he says, you were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lust and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to clothe yourself with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So then, since we've been called to such an honorable profession, since we've been called to a divine family, that God wants us to no longer identify with Satan's world and his deception and his lies and the fact that he has assisted us in becoming deceitful. He says in verse 25, put away lying, put away falsehood, and let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. You know, we want to be able to help and love and serve one another. We have a responsibility toward one another to be not only truthful, but to be loving, to be caring, to be deeply concerned for one another. He goes ahead and talks about a lot of other things, and I'm not going to try to go through those. I'm simply focusing on this one thing, how God wants us to know the truth, he wants us to speak the truth, he wants us to live in truth.

This past feast, we had a sermon that Mr. Kubik gave that was broadcast to most of the feast sites, so probably all of you saw it, or at least most of us did. And he focused on one psalm.

That psalm was Psalm 15. It, in a sense, kind of summarizes who it is that can abide in the tent of God, who it is that can dwell on His holy hill. Who is it that can be a part of the family of God? Well, he answers the question, of course, after starting in Psalm 15, verse 1, with those questions, oh Lord, who can abide in Your tent? Who can dwell on Your holy hill?

Well, it says in verse 2, those who seek sincere honesty instead of live in their own delusion. Those who walk blamelessly, who do what is right, who speak the truth from their heart. That's what God is cleansing. That's what He is purifying. He's wanting to purify our hearts. Whenever James mentions that, James has an amazing book. He has way too much stuff in the little bitty five chapters that he's got there. We don't have a lot of extended commentary from James. We have commentaries that are about James and some that are quite critical of James. But, you've got a lot of good information in James that can be really, truly wonderful, where he says, submit yourself to God and resist the devil, and He will flee from you and draw close to God, and God will be close to you. And then he goes ahead to say, clean your hands. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. See, he goes ahead with a lot of good information that tie together with what we're talking about here. But here in Psalm 15, those who are going to be close to God, those who are going to make up His divine family, those who are going to identify with the Creator God instead of the God of this world, they're going to walk blamelessly, they're going to do what is right, they're going to speak the truth from their heart. Verse 3, those who do not slander with their tongue, who do no evil to their friends and nor take up a reproach against their neighbors, whose eyes, in whose eyes the wicked are despised. See, it's not just enough to know that something is wrong. God sees that as being horrendous. In whose eyes the wicked are despised, and who honor those who fear the Lord. And so that, in a sense, ties together with 1 Corinthians 13, where it talks about what the love of God is. It doesn't rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in what? The truth. It rejoices in the truth. That's the love of God that God has for us. And it goes ahead in verse 4 to say, who stands by their oath, even to their own hurt?

See, they are completely honest. They are willing to keep their promises, even when it adversely affects them. See, I think it's fabulous to be able to see that, to have that covered not only in our church services and for everyone to hear, but for all of us to know that everything in our lives as a Christian has got to be anchored in truth. And all of us can't commit ourselves to being truthful, and we can reflect on how that affects everything we do, everything we say, everything we think as we edit that as needed, and even as we live. So I encourage all of us, again, as we begin this year, as we look forward to the coming year, to truly want to keep the Ninth Commandment, which is the basis, of course, for this, but also to be genuine and authentic disciples of Jesus Christ. Because as we do that, then we will not only know, and not only speak, but we will truly live in truth. And as God sees that in our lives, we can receive God's blessing on our work, on our labors, and we clearly want that as we try to fulfill His work.