The Lie

Well, let's just open with what's some scriptures here. Turn with me to 2 Thessalonians.

We know that every... 2 Thessalonians 2 is where I'm going. But we know that every word that God gives us has meaning. And sometimes you'll hear me say, especially as we've gone through the Bible studies, there's a sermonette that occurs in every single verse, it seems, of some of the books of the Bible that can be there. And as our sermonette speakers are planning their messages, you know, it wouldn't be bad to take a verse and just explain it because there's so much. One of the passages that we have, especially those of prophecy, you know, can be very interesting.

And sometimes we read things and we contemplate them, but we won't know exactly what they mean until God brings them about. And then we look back and see what the meaning is. Such is the case with 2 Thessalonians 2. I'm going to read through the first 11 verses here and not highlight a lot. I'm going to come down to one concept in 2 Thessalonians 2 to talk about today.

But let's just read through it because there are words for our time, the end time. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 1, Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us as though the day of Christ had come.

So somewhere in Paul's time, people are saying, oh, the day of Christ is already here. The day of the Lord is already here. And he goes, you know, you know the truth. Don't let people lead you astray. We know what God says is the pattern. He gives us the outline of what prophecy is. It's our job to know that and to be able to look at the times and discern the times that we live in.

Verse 30 says, Let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come, unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin, or the man of lawlessness, it could be translated, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Well, clearly, that man hasn't appeared yet. As we look down the road, we can see that that may be in the future. Perhaps we begin to see the rudiments of that as people try to present themselves as God, that they can establish laws and they can do what they will and define what people believe. Don't you remember, Paul writes, that when I was with you, I told you these things, and now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. We can all agree to that. We even hear the term lawlessness on the news and in our media today. The mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And don't be confused by the capital H's there in 2 Thessalonians 2.7.

At some point, the restraint will be taken away and that man will be revealed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, verse 8, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. And with all the unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

And for this reason, that they didn't love the truth that they received, and for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie that they all may be condemned to did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Well, as I said, as we go down through those verses, there are three, four, five sermons in those verses, and somewhere down the road we may talk about each one of those things individually. Today, I want to focus in on verse 11, the lie.

The lie. Those who don't love the truth, and recently there was a sermon here on loving the truth and how important it is for you and me to love the truth and to make it part of our being, part of our mind, part of our heart, that we know it, and we know the voice of Christ and know the way that he is going.

But what about the lie? What does God mean when he says, they will believe the lie? What is the lie? Well, maybe it's the lie that the false prophet, you know, here in these verses we've read about lying already, we've read about deception, we've read about a false prophet that has marvelous, fascinating, and lying wonders.

Is that the lies talking about? Well, yeah, Christ talks about that it's going to be so whatever, so wondrous, I guess, what this false prophet can do that even the very elect could be deceived if they don't know God, if they don't know the truth, it'll be so powerful and so deceiving that even the elect could be deceived. That's hard to understand because we haven't seen anything like that in our lifetimes. So that could be a lie that people will believe, but that's in the future. Let's go back to 1 John 2. When we look at the early New Testament Church, we read of lies that are there, and the apostles would talk about the lies that were extant on the earth at that day, and we're all aware of some of them. At 1 John 2 and verse 22, John, an apostle, writes this. He says, Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denies the Father and the Son. Well, there's a lie.

The world was full of that lie, and Jerusalem was full of that lie in the first century. There's a whole religion that said Jesus Christ is not the Messiah. There's a religion, plenty of religions out there today that say Jesus Christ is not the Messiah. They deny His name. That lie was there in the first century when John wrote this. It was a lie. You remember the apostles and the disciples, when Jesus Christ, He said, You will be witnesses to Me. Witnesses to Me. Let the world know that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. And yet, there was a lie on the earth. Jesus Christ was not the Messiah. And so, you know, He says this. Who's a liar? Who's a liar, but He who denies that Jesus is the Christ? Is that the lie? Well, it could be a lie, because there are plenty of religions on earth today, as I said, that don't teach that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Jesus Christ is not even part of some of the religions. But even in America where Jesus Christ is the religion, they don't do what we'll get to here in verse 21 in a minute. But there's a whole lot of people who would agree with us. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He's the Savior. So is that the lie today? Well, it's the lie for some, but not the lie. Certainly part of the lie. If we go up to verse 21, we see John further explaining what a lie can be. He says, I haven't written to you because you don't know the truth. You and I know the truth. I haven't written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. If it's the truth, there's no lie. There's no error in it. Anything that mixes a little error, just a little error with the truth, is no longer the truth. Truth is pure truth. Truth comes from the Bible, the Word of God. If there's anything as part of any belief or that's being preached that isn't in the Bible, it's no longer truth. It's a lie by definition. And so we have a whole lot of people that will tell you Jesus Christ is the Messiah, Jesus Christ is the Savior, but then they teach things that aren't in the Bible. They don't teach the things that Jesus Christ taught. They don't teach the things that the Bible says. They teach something different. Is that the lie? Yeah, that's part of the lie. I don't know if it's the only lie, but those who are deceived will believe the lie. Let's go back and look at at 2 Peter, 2 Peter 3.

And verse 3. Breaking into the thought here, Peter writes, know this first.

Scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts.

Scoffers, making fun, minimizing the Word of God, saying it doesn't really matter, according to their own lusts, the things that they want to do, and saying, well, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

I'll tell you, not many people believe, really, that Jesus Christ is returning to this earth.

Many people will tell you, yeah, the Bible says that, but most churches don't even teach that.

Is that the lie? Is that the lie that Jesus Christ isn't returning to earth and that there's something else different than what the Bible says? Yeah, that's part of the lie. You can come to many churches that'll say, Jesus Christ is the Messiah, but plenty, plenty on earth will say, really? Do you think he's going to return? Well, if we love the truth and if we know the truth, we know he will return. We absolutely know it. Otherwise, we can throw the Bible out the window. The Bible is truth and God is truth. Now, what he says will happen will happen.

Well, we could go down the list of many things and say, is that the lie?

Everything that we've talked about so far, we could say, yes, that's a lie, but God says they will believe the lie. Is the lie a bigger, encompassing thing than just one element? It appears that at the end of the time, people will believe the lie, whatever that is, or whatever that may be composed of.

You know, it strikes me as we go through the book of Acts, how much lying is part of Satan's way of attacking the church? You know, we talked about Steven recently and how this group of Jews who could not counter Steven's proof from the Bible that Jesus is the Messiah, what they did, they didn't want to believe it. So what they did was lie. They lied about him. They began to just spread false rumors about him, to discredit him in that way. Well, we can't prove that he's wrong, but we simply don't want to believe Jesus is the Messiah, so will lie about him. And the lie grew, and eventually Steven is brought before the council. Steven is stoned to death in a fit of anger by some of the things that he said. Lying is one of the things that Satan uses. They lied about Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said, if they did it to me, they'll do it to you. One of the things that Satan does to attack the truth is lie. It makes sense, right? God is truth. Satan is lie. How do you attract the truth? You deceive. You deceive people. Let's go to John 8, 44, and get a definition of exactly who Satan is. You know, we already read that the working of the lawless one is of Satan. In John 8 and verse 44, Christ gives us a very clear and a very distinct definition of who Satan is as he's dealing with the Pharisees and responding to them and talking to them who were going to lie about Jesus Christ in order to have him arrested, incouraged, and crucified, and killed. Use that tactic to cancel the message that he had. As Jesus Christ is speaking in verse 42 of John 8, he says this. He says, If God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. I have not come of myself, but he sent me. Why don't you understand my speech? You're not able to understand or listen to my word. You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

Well, that's quite a telling statement. There is no truth in him. Satan may use some truth, mixed with error, to take us away from what the truth is. Something that appeals to us, something that appeals to our own ideas or whatever it is, he may use some truth, but he never uses it to lead to truth. He always uses truth to deceive and to lead people away. And Christ says there is no truth in him. There is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he's a liar. He's the father of it. So whenever we read that Satan, something is of Satan, we know it's a lie. It's a lie, because there is no truth in him. When the Bible speaks of the false prophet at the end of the age, when it talks about the beast's power, and it says the power comes from Satan, you know there is no truth in it. It's a lie. When the false prophet does the lying wonders, as Paul says in 2 Thessalonians, it's a lie. And those who know the truth and love the truth will understand that and won't be deceived by it. Those who don't love the truth will believe the lie. The lie. Well, deception is a word. The Bible uses a few different words that indicate or that will indicate what lying is. Deception is certainly one of those words. We've already read that a few times in 2 Thessalonians 2 in other words. We know that if we're deceived, we believe the lie. Eve, right back to the beginning of time, right? Eve believed the lie. God told her the truth. He set it out for her. He set the example and told her and Adam, if you eat to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will die. Satan came along and what did he say? You won't surely die. You won't surely die. And they found out the hard way. They surely did die.

They surely did die. They learned out the hard way what murder is when their first two sons, one killed the other because lying in Satan's way never leads to good. It never leads to life. It always leads to death. That's what Satan's about. He is the father of murder. What is murder? Death. That's what his mission is. He's not the father of truth. He's the father of a lie. And his entire purpose is to mislead the people of God and lead people away from God. And anything of Satan, that's the purpose behind it. Those who don't love the truth will believe the lie. Let me read. Definition of deception. The definition of a lie is that it is the intent to deceive. It is not always a spoken word that is a lie. For a life lived under false pretenses is also a lie. And they go on to say, error mixed with truth is also a lie. All sorts of lies out there.

Let's turn to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 11.

Now we can see some of the words in the Bible that describe Satan, who's the father of the lie, in whom there is no truth. And we can kind of see the way that he behaves, the way that he presents himself. And as we see that in others, we understand, well, that's not of God. That's not the way God is or God's truth is. 2 Corinthians 11 verse 13. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, these are people who aren't telling the truth, these are not true apostles, these are self-proclaimed apostles who are there to deceive you. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, who transform themselves into apostles of Christ. They speak high, lofty words, make it sound like truth. But what it is, is a lie.

Is a lie. It's not of God. Transforming themselves into apostles of Christ, and no wonder, Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. So therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. That's exactly what Satan did right in the beginning, right? He transformed himself into this wonderful creature that approached Eve. He didn't come out, you know, looking like the pictures of devils that people, they may see depicted today. He was this serpent that apparently was very attractive and appealing to Eve. He was very charming, and as it says in Genesis 3.1, he was very cunning. Remember that word? When you see the word cunning, you don't see the word cunning. You don't see the word cunning in association with Jesus Christ. You don't see the word cunning in association with the truth. You see the word cunning where Satan's involved and where lack of truth or lie is involved. He transformed himself into someone who, oh, you can believe me, believe me, I've got the truth, and look what Eve did. Look what Eve did. She fell for it. She didn't love the truth. She fell for the lie. She fell for the lie in her life to find that. So we can look at whenever we see the word cunning, whenever we see the word transforming themselves into an angel of light, we would look and say, that's not of God. There's purity. There's truth. There's sincerity in the truth of God. No reason to act it out. It comes from the heart. It comes from within. Not something, a show that we put on. We go back to the beginning of the chapter, chapter 11, verse 3. It says here, I fear, Paul writing to the Corinthian church, I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. He was crafty. He kind of spun the words in just the right way to make them appeal to her. Whenever you see the word craftiness, you don't see that associated with Jesus Christ. He wasn't crafty. The truth isn't crafty. Things of Satan are crafty. Their intent is to deceive and to lead away from the truth.

Go back to the Old Testament, Daniel 8.

And a prophecy for the end times, as we will see. We see a word, and with this man of lawlessness, what will mark him?

And words that used to describe him. Pick it up in verse 23 of Daniel 8.

It says, in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their fullness, tells you the time we're living in, when the transgressors have reached their fullness, sin, lawlessness, is upon the earth. When the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise, having fierce features, who understands sinister schemes.

His power will be mighty, but not by his own power. It'll be by Satan's power. He shall destroy fearfully, and he shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people. It's always the intent. Destroy the truth of God. Destroy the holy people of God. Destroy Jesus Christ. Destroy Stephen. Destroy anyone who preaches the truth. That's what the mission of Satan is. Verse 25, through his cunning, there we have that word again, through his cunning, he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule. Clever words, crafty words, trickery in the words, making himself appear to be something he's not, making the lie appear to be the truth. He shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule, and he shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without human means. We already read in 2 Thessalonians 2 that Christ will be the one, and in Revelation we read it as well, that'll break the power of this coming power that will rule the earth. So we see these words. We see these words that are there throughout, you know, the Bible. Let's go forward to this now to the book of Acts, and we see that the Church of God is directly affected by this, and it's incumbent on all of us to know the truth, the whole truth, not to devise our own way of salvation, to devise our own way of walking with God, but to let him lead our course and direct our paths. Acts 20, and let's pick it up in verse...

Well, let's pick it up in verse 30. Paul here is talking to the Church's Ephesus. He's about to leave the Church after having been there three years. He knows what's going to happen. He understands the traits of Satan. He understands the devices of Satan and what's going to come to the... upon the Church after he leaves, right? Verse 30 says, from among yourselves. That means people sitting right among you, Church of Ephesus. Even from among the Church of God, people who say they know the truth, who God has called, who God has opened their minds, who have been baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit. Also from among yourselves, men will rise up. They will speak perverse things. Better translation of perverse. Perverse is certainly a lie, but misleading things is a better translation of that Greek word. Misleading things are lies designed to have you follow above their way than God. From among yourselves, men will rise up speaking misleading things. Why? To draw away the disciples after themselves. Bottom line, to draw the disciples away from God. That's always the mission. The lie is there. The lie can be appealing. If we don't know the truth, if we don't love the truth, a lie, whatever that lie is, can lead us away. And sadly, over the years we've seen people who have believed the lie, whether it's a lie of their own deceiving in their own mind where they've deceived themselves, or believe some little cunning doctrine, or looked at something on the internet and said, wow, that really looks good. That appeals to me. I want to believe that, and I don't want to even hear about what the truth of the Bible says. Now, all those things are lies, right? 2 Peter 3.16, you can write that down in your notes. That's where Peter talks about people will twist the Scriptures of Paul. Some of the things in Paul, you have to just kind of sit, and you have to think about it. You have to meditate on it. You have to pull it apart to see what is Paul saying. And yet we have all religions, a lot of religions out there, who have twisted the words of Paul to say something they're not, or that Paul never preached.

It's a lie. It's cunning. It's crafty. It's designed to deceive. It's designed to lead people away from the truth. Beware of that, Jesus Christ said. Beware of that, the Bible tells us. Paul says that in 2 Thessalonians to that church, and we say it to God's church today, beware. Beware of the lie. Know the truth. Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4.

As God is working with us, and he puts us in a body where he grows us and teaches us and matures us into beings that can be born as spirit beings into the family of God at the time of the first resurrection.

He says this about what part of our education and maturation process, as we are here in the developmental change, while we're still in these physical human bodies, awaiting for the time that Jesus Christ returns and we're born as spirit beings, and Ephesians 4. And let's pick it up in verse 12, cutting into the middle of the statement. Here's why God puts us in a church. Here's why we need each other. Here's why we have to be part of a body. He says, I've given you all this. This is the way I've set the church up for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. That's service. That's what we've all been called to. For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. For the edifying. That's building up for the building up of the body of Christ. Till we all come to the unity of the faith. All of one accord, like we read over and over again in the book of Acts, all of one accord, till we come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. To a perfect man. Sometimes people take issue with the word perfect. It means spiritually mature, but make no mistake, what God is working in you and me, he intends to bring us to perfection. It won't happen in this physical life. But we do need to be working on that. And as he allows us, and as his Holy Spirit leads us, we are to be coming closer and closer to the picture of Jesus Christ that he wants us to become. We won't become perfect in this lifetime, but that is the goal that he has set for all of us. We develop in that as we're here in this time. So we all come to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man. And there it is, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. What was Jesus Christ? He was perfect.

He only believed the truth. He only spoke the truth. And what? Verse 14, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine. The doctrine is in the Bible. What we believe is in the Bible, and only in the Bible. We don't add to it. We don't take away from it. We do it exactly what God says and preach exactly what God says.

When we read about every wind of doctrine, if there's different spins on doctrine, it's not the truth. We have to all know what the doctrine of God is, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men. Do we have to trick people into believing the truth? No. But by the trickery of men, that we would no longer be carried away by that. In the cunning craftiness, there's the two words together, in the canny craftiness of deceitful plotting. If we know the truth, if we're rounded in the truth, if it's in our heart, if we love it, we're not going to be susceptible to these things. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. And then you can you know what the rest of the verse says there that's very meaningful as well. What God wants us to do is to be aware of the truth, but to also be aware of the lie and not to fall prey to the lie and all those words that we talked about. I could go on for another 10 minutes on other things that are the lie. You can read through Proverbs. You see slander is a lie. Gossiping and talking wrong about each other is not the truth. It's a lie. Flattery is a lie. It tells us that in Proverbs. It's not designed. It's not sincere. It's not true. It's designed for another purpose. Flattery, slander, all those things that aren't the truth because the Bible is full of those things to warn us and to let us know, believe the truth. Don't get fooled by this and that and whatever it is, be aware of being what's being said. Be aware of the spirit that's behind it. So when the time comes and Satan ramps up the intent to deceive, when that was no longer restrained, that we can stand right through it all and stand for the truth.

So is there just one lie? Just one particular lie? No. There is one lie, though. There is one lie that is multifaceted. We've talked a lot about what is going on in religion today, and we've talked a lot about the Bible, and we know from the Bible that there are things that are being taught around the world that are far from the Bible. We know that. Seven people, seven billion people on earth, only one billion people will claim that Jesus Christ is Messiah. There's six billion who have already been deceived. Satan's done a really good job. Of the one billion people who would say Jesus Christ is a messiah, there's just a handful. There's just a handful that do things the way Jesus Christ said. Just a handful. Doesn't even measure on the measuring stick, right? So we know a whole lot of those are deceived because they believe that what they're doing is obeying Jesus Christ. They are not. If it's not what Jesus Christ taught, we are not following God.

Come with me to John 14. John 14.

In verse 6, we've seen Jesus Christ say that Satan, there's no truth in him. He is a liar.

There is no truth in him. We're told in John 14 that Jesus Christ is truth. Jesus, in his last message to the disciples before he was arrested that night after that last Passover he was on earth, he said this, I am the way, I am the truth. I am the way, I am the truth. There's no truth in Satan.

There's no lie in Jesus Christ. And we know the way because God has reserved it for us. I am the truth, Jesus Christ said. Believe me. Don't be deceived. Don't go off on other cycles saying, well, this is what Jesus Christ meant. If you know the Bible and if you're led by the Holy Spirit, you will know exactly what the Bible says. Don't let others deceive you and don't deceive yourself. It's a message that Christ gave over and over. I am the truth, Jesus Christ said. And he Bruce, six, in verse 17, we've been as we went through the book of Hebrews, we noted this verse along with the many other things in the book of Hebrews. In verse 17 of Hebrews 6, God says a remarkable thing when we put it into the context that we're talking about today. In verse 17, it says, Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, that's you and me, when we've been called, when we repent, when we turn to God, when we're baptized, when we have hands laid on us, when we receive the Holy Spirit and we're led by that. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, the immutability, that's the unchangeability, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable or unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.

Don't you wish it was impossible for you and me to not lie or, yeah, impossible for us to lie. It's impossible for God to lie. It's not part of his nature at all.

He's not the father of the lie. Satan is the father of lies. It's impossible for God to lie. When he says it, it's absolute truth. Take it to the bank or whatever kind of surety you want to mark on it, it will happen. He tells us that in Isaiah 45 and chapter 55. When my word goes out, it will not come back empty. What I say, my word will stand. God cannot lie.

And if we ever find a lie in the Bible in this truth, then we can throw it away. And I challenge anyone if you've seen or think you see a lie in the Bible, you bring it to me and we'll sit down and we'll talk about it. There is no lie in the truth of God. There is no lie in God.

There is no truth in Satan. The way to eternal life is through truth.

Not through half truths, not through 90% truths, but 100% truth.

You know the word devil, that's translated devil in the Bible, has an interesting definition, if you will, when you look it up in Strongs. Here's what it says about devil. Devil. You know, Satan we know means adversary. He's also called the devil.

It says it means, devil means to slander, accuse, or defame properly. It's a slanderer, a false accuser, unjustly criticizing to hurt or malign and condemn to sever a relationship.

Well, that's what the devil does. What's his purpose? I want to separate you from God. You say you're following God. My purpose is, and my reason for being, that Satan has chosen, is to sever your relationship with God, and he will do it by any means necessary, or any means that we allow him to make it necessary.

You know, we talked about many things. Compromise. Compromise, or putting our own definition on a clear law of God, is a lie as well. You know, God is very clear. As I mentioned yesterday in my letter of what his laws are, and he tells us our job is to diligently, carefully, and earnestly obey him. Know the truth. Follow it. Keep it intently. Don't allow yourself the luxury of compromise. There's no compromise in God. It's his way, and only his way. That's the way to eternal life. Now, God tells you and me, what does he desire? Psalm 51 verse 6.

David said, what I desire, or what you desire, is truth in the inward part.

That in us is truth, and God knows, and God dwells no lie. He is truth. What he wants in us, and what he expects from us, and what his Holy Spirit will lead us to, is to have truth in the inward part. That truth will become us. You know, we've all lied. We've all lied. No one can sit there. We all lie probably even more than we realize in our daily conversation, because it's so ingrained in us. And we still have carnal minds that have to be purified, and all those things have to be expunged from the way we live. And when it comes to our attention that we've lied deliberately, or if we've exaggerated something, and if we're not being careful with what we say, to try to present ourselves in a different way than it really is, we have to watch that and repent before God and tell him, we too desire truth in the inward parts. We want to be true, just like God is true. We want the lie and the capacity to lie, to depart from us. If we're going to be measured to the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ, in whom there is no lie, that's what we need to be working toward as well.

So we have this contrast. Satan, in whom there is no truth.

God and Jesus Christ, in whom there is no lie. We're told in the Bible that the whole world, the world you and I live in, that we work in, that we go to school in, that we shop in, that we have neighbors that we live next door to and in the world and everyone else that we do, family members who are in the world and not in the church, the Bible tells us the whole world is under the sway of Satan, the whole world. 2 Corinthians 4, 4 tells us that Satan is the God of this age. He is.

Revelation 12, 9 tells us Satan deceives the whole world. You know, when God makes statements, he doesn't mean it like you and I might. You use the word whole or always and whatever. He means the whole world is under the sway of Satan. He means the whole world is deceived. There is no lie in God. It is truth. And if the whole world is under the sway of Satan, what does that tell us about the world? It tells us there's a lot of lies. The world itself is a lie. Turn to 2 Timothy 3 verse 13. Again, speaking of the end times, you can see in verse 1 there in 2 Timothy 3. As Paul is writing to Timothy, he says, No, this first in the last days, perilous times will come. And he goes through and he lists all these traits that will be there at the end time. If we're honest with ourselves, we can look down that list and say every single one of them we can see in the world around us today. But drop down to verse 13. Verse 13, it says, Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. That means as time goes on, the world will go deeper and deeper into a lie. The world will go further and further away from God. The lies will increase more and more and more. Evil men and impostors, those false apostles, prophets, whatever, that want to make themselves look like they are lights to the world. That they have this wonderful idea of where the world can be.

They'll grow worse and worse. And as we look at the world around us today, we see a world that defines that verse.

If we're honest with ourselves and we look back two years, the world we live in today is certainly further and further away from God than it was two years ago.

If we look at the world around us, what we see is a situation that Pontius Pilate found himself in. Back when Jesus Christ was brought before him and the Jews were screaming, crucify him, crucify him. They brought him forth on the basis of lies.

Pontius Pilate believed them. They are the Jews, after all, but then he talked to Jesus Christ.

And he thought, well, I don't see any fault in him. I don't see any fault in him. So who's telling the truth? And so he wrote that timeless or uttered those timeless words, what is truth? What is truth?

Now, we can talk about the religions of the world that seven billion people subscribe to in one way or the other, even if they deny the existence of a God or worship whatever they worship. What about society in general today? If we're looking at the world today, we might all be asking, what is truth? Look at the things that we've been through in the last year.

As someone had said two years ago, masks will be an issue among people. It'll be an issue in the church. And we look at masks, and I'm not going to say one way or the other about them. There's a group of people that says, you know what? They're absolutely the right thing to do. And they have studies that can prove that those are the thing to do. On the other hand, there's another group of people who say, no, masks don't work. And there are studies who say, they don't work. They all look credible on the face of it. The question is, where's truth?

Where's truth? Can't find it. There's two sides. Pontius Pilate asks, what's truth? We will ask, what's truth? What is it?

That we, you know, that's one thing. We can talk about vaccines, right? The world is all about vaccines these days. The push is on for vaccines. There's a group of people who say, oh, the vaccine is great. It's safe and effective. Everyone should have it, and the pressure is on. Everyone should have it. And they're armed with all these experts who say, it's safe, it's effective.

On the other hand, we have another group who says, no, it's not safe. It's never been tried before. Look at all these things. And there's experts, even people who are part of it, who say, no, it's not safe. No, it's not effective. It needed more trials. We need to see what happens a year or two down the road. Because we don't know. There's never been anything like this before. What group do you believe? The ones who say it's safe and effective, or the ones who say it's not safe and effective. Where's truth? Because they're both armed with studies.

We can look at opinion polls. Remember when opinion polls meant something, and you could look at a Gallup poll, and it would kind of give you a vision or an idea of where the population actually stood on an issue? The last couple of elections have shown us you can throw the opinion polls right out. Because one poll can say this, but then someone else has another poll that says this. It's all designed to be what they want you to believe, what they want to lead you into.

Where's the truth? Not going to find it in the world.

Hopelessly divided, never the twain shall meet.

We know religion, right? We know religion. You can't go to the Protestants. You can't go to the Methodists. You can't go to the Jews. You can't go to the Muslims. You can't go to the Buddhists. You can't go to the Hindus and find truth. They all have differing things. They can't all be true. It's a gift when God leads you to the truth. We can look at our educational system.

Most of us want to believe what our teachers are teaching our children is truth. All of a sudden, we have a world filled with, well, what are our children being taught? What is history? What is the truth? What are they being taught? Is that what you want being taught? Where's the truth?

It looks to me that when we look at the world today, there's nothing but one big lie out there. And if we trust in the world, we're trusting in the wrong thing. The only truth that you and I will find ever is from God and the Bible. That has to be what leads us in this time. If we believe the world and ever put our trust in it, I dare say we're believing a lie. And I dare say from here on out, as 2nd Timothy 3.13 says, those lies will become worse and worse, more and more evil. What is truth? Truth is Jesus Christ. Truth is God the Father. Truth is the Bible that Jesus Christ says is the word of truth that the scripture is unbreakable. Truth is the only thing that will result when it's in us that will lead to eternal life. No half truths. Everyone in time will understand, come to know the truth in God's own order, as he says. Our job is to know the truth, live by the truth, and cling to the truth. I can be turning to Micah. Micah 7.

Know the ninth commandment that God gave is, thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. False witness is certainly a lie. One of them that we haven't mentioned, certainly one that we saw used against Jesus Christ, used against Stephen. They'll be used against God's people in the future.

You can imagine what those lies will be as we think ahead on them.

Micah 7 and verse 5.

It says, don't trust in a friend.

That's almost kind of dark reading that, isn't it? Don't trust in a friend.

Don't put your confidence in a companion. Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom. Samson learned the hired way, you know, to he should have guarded the doors of his mouth from Delilah. We need to be people who can discern what is being done and what we're being told and why. Now, we don't believe the lie, whatever it is, or no matter how little it is, but to put our trust in the only place we can put our trust.

Verse 6, for son dishonors father. Daughter rises against her mother. Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are the men of his own household. You know what lies do? Well, we read it. They separate. They separate people. That's why Satan uses them. We have all these sides. We have all these divisions. Lies never unite people. Lies always result in division.

Truth always results in unity. One accord. One belief. One God. One Spirit. Where there's division, where people are separated, lies are there. And it's up to us to ask God, uncover those. Let there be truth in our inward part. Let us not believe the lie. Even the lies that we might tell ourselves about how good we are or how right this way is or what we're doing. We need God's Spirit to give us that discernment. You know, Micah, as he writes here, and he says these things about, look at this vision. It's the same words that Jesus Christ said in Matthew 24.

He said in the end time, what's going to happen? Family members will turn you in. They're going to lie about you. They're going to do the things that they do because the world is going to be against truth. It's Satan's world. It's against truth. Therefore, what's the answer? I will look to the eternal. I will wait for the God of my salvation. He will hear me. The only place we can look is to God and to wait for Him. And the trust of the words he says, I will protect you. I will shield you. I will guide you through this. I will be your help. I will be your stay. I will be your rock. I will be your salvation. Boy, there's that little word, wait. There's that little word, wait. Amongst other little words we've talked about that we're going to learn, we need to wait for God. We need to wait for God. That's where truth is. Jeremiah 17.

Jeremiah 17 and verse 5. He writes, Thus says the eternal. Jeremiah 17 verse 5.

Cursed.

Cursed is the man who trusts in man.

So can you trust in the government today?

Can you trust in education? Can you trust in education? The educational system today?

Can you trust medicine today?

All sorts of different things out there. Anything under the book. Everything in the book you can read about.

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. Whose heart departs from the eternal?

Those are words to contemplate as we make our choices, make our decisions, as we choose truth, and as we choose truth in the inward part.

Cursed is a man who trusts in man, for he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes. But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in the salt land which is not inhabited.

On the other hand, verse 7, blessed is the man who trusts in God, who puts his trust and faith and reliance on him and in him, and learns that and takes the opportunities in this life to build that trust, to build that reliance, to turn from reliance on man to trust in God. Blessed is the man who trusts in the eternal, whose hope is in the Lord. He will be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when he comes.

Now fear is another one of those tactics of Satan, another one that comes by lies. You can stoke fear by the things that you say, and we see that around us today. And will not fear when he comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit. And of course, then, the very familiar verse in verse 9, our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Same thing that God says in Romans 8-7. The way we overcome lies, and that deceitful heart, God's spirit living in us, us letting it lead us, denying self, choosing truth even when truth hurts and isn't the thing we want to do, but always realizing we choose God's way first, and practicing truth. Practicing truth, truth and our commitment to it, will unite us. Lies will divide us. Let's never let lies or the deceit of Satan ever divide or separate us from God or each other.