Truthfulness and Honesty

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed. During his trial, he was asked if he was guilty or not. Of the charges of executing, as some humanitarian aid agencies say, 300,000 people. Absolutely not. His words were, no, I am not guilty. Not guilty. The world scoffed when he said that. Because, you know, they knew better. They knew it was a lie. This last week, it was interesting, the same world that scoffed is pushing and promoting lies of its own.

It's kind of sad this last week for us to find ourselves in a very remote, rural, and impoverished area of the world on what is called Christmas Day. And find people who have pushed, people who have little or nothing, to embrace Santa Claus, which is a lie, obviously, and push them to take what little meager things they have and spin this to buy things and give them away to other people.

On a day that any theologian, any Bible scholar worth assault, knows that Jesus was never born anywhere near the month of December, let alone on the 25th. But here you see this shown sort of in its absurdity of a people who, for thousands of years, have believed a different way and now are being told to embrace lies that really only hurt them. As we drove along on that particular day, it was an unusual day because everybody had put on whatever the nicest clothes they had and were out walking on the roads, and I mean by the thousands, choking the roads, endangering themselves.

In fact, they were, many of them, getting drunk. And the drunkenness over there, for some reason, people like to show it off. And so running out in front of your car, for instance, doing things to really be drunk. And one man was laying in the road, and as we came by, one of the few cars that you'd seen that, or as we came by, he struggled to work his way further out into the road to get as close to the car as we could, and just as we passed, he stuck his arm out as far as he could reach to try to get it under the tires.

You know, all the way across on that particular day, as we saw that, unfortunately, not only had flights been canceled, but airports closed at the last minute, and so we had to do a frantic race halfway across the country to try to catch a midnight flight out, because our connecting flight across the country had been closed.

We saw all manner of things that night that were dishonest and untruthful, and people almost sacrificed at the point of lack of truth. Police who weren't really police, and police uniforms with guns that weren't there to protect, but were really there to rob. And we believe it was by the mercy of God that we got through one of those. And others, youth who sprawled out onto a busy highway and were punching and fighting, and one person was knocked flat right in the street as we weaved to miss, in a display that we were told was fake in order to cause people driving to slow down so that that mob of youth could then rob the cars.

So you have this this twist of truth and error in a place where people have so many needs, and yet the needs are misrepresented by the masses in order to trick and get treats, to be sicker, to tell the stories, to tell the tales, or to invent things.

If somebody is giving assistance for funerals, suddenly people have dead parents, a couple of dead brothers. These are all church people that I'm talking about, people who have attended church at one time or another, and these dead people have been seen later walking around just fine. It's not that we fall for these ploys, it's actually quite the opposite. We understand that most things and most appeals probably are maybe have a grain of truth in them, but they get exaggerated and they get pushed.

And so wherever we go, you think you've seen it all, you think you've heard it all, and then the person that you're counseling for baptism, and finally I did actually baptize a person one time in a country that needed somebody to assist with those who were coming into the church, and only later learned that as I was baptizing him, another minister from another Sabbath group was also baptizing him, and both of us were using him to assist with people. In fact, it turned out he was a full-time employee of the other church and overseeing the fee site.

At the same time that he was begging us for funds and, you know, help for office fees and things like that for the same office, for the same people, for the same, you know.

But here you have people who generally, genuinely do have needs, but they've been raised in a culture where everyone lies to themselves, just like you and me in our culture, where everyone lies. And life itself often is pretty much a lie, from who we present ourselves to be, to how we actually push ourselves to look or appear to other people. You know, what is truth? What is truth? Society today is built on lies, on deception, whether it's the banking system, whether it's the manufacturing side, whether it's sales or advertising, whether it's spending or relationships. There's a lot of lies and deceit and trickery that goes on. Consider the role of some of these things in society that we take for granted in our good old western, upscale, you know, society, uncorrupt society.

What about building facades? You know what a building facade is? You go down Main Street and you see all these big tall buildings that from the backside, they don't look like that, do they?

They're not made of those same materials. In fact, they're not quite as tall and not quite as elaborate. Sale gimmicks on sale. Sale, sale price, all the gimmicks that goes on. What about the investments? We're told investment. What's an investment? Your car's an investment. This is an investment. Buy this product. It's an investment. The loss leaders. I'm sure you're familiar with that term. When you see a sale at the store and this turkey is only two cents a pound, you know, race in there, grab you three or four of those and pick up the other things you need that are marked up. Bait and switch. Things that are new and improved. Why is it new? Why is it new and improved? Why isn't it an ad that our last ones didn't work and they were awful?

Why is it that everything you have, you see, everything you have needs to be replaced? This is the message of advertising. This one is new and it's improved. What you have that we made last year. That's no good. You know, advertising in effect. I was reading that, actually, I ran an ad agency for two, three years, but one man said that actual all advertising is a lie. All advertising is a lie. No matter how much truth that is in it, it is a lie for the very fact that there is no need to advertise the necessities of life. Anything that's advertised is therefore not a necessity and you don't need it. That's why it's being advertised. So no matter how much truth the message may contain, the fact that it's pushing at you that you need it is itself a lie. For instance, you remember Hershey Candy Company? You probably know them. The biggest chocolate manufacturer in the United States. Never ran a single ad in the history of the company before 1970. How do you get to be the biggest manufacturer? Company president, Mr. Hershey, himself said, you built something of quality, people will buy it. If you needed chocolate, you got it. But what happened in the 1970s was a profound shift in this country and people who had inferior products started touting them as better and best and the best. And therefore, you had this mix ever since of dishonesty and lack of truthfulness and sort of a fight then for the minds of people. And you and I are used to this. We're used to interest-free loans. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a bank or somebody in the financial institute giving an interest-free loan or offering you something with no obligation? How about this? We're going to sell it to you for the same price we bought it for. Factory invoice, big sale, an unconditional warranty. That would be the smallest piece of paper in the world. There are no conditions of this warranty. Wow.

It'd just be nothing else to say. The year's best movie, exclusive offer.

Exclusive offer. Get rich. Buy my book. We're used to that. But then there's the personal enhancements that come along. I remember one man saying after going into a lady's lingerie store that if he would be afraid to marry a woman because, you know, who knows what she'd really look like. And so, you know, there's so many things that can be, I guess, changed or recolored or whatever.

Back in 1917, an advertiser named Norman Douglas made this statement. You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. That's a profound statement if you flip on the TV today and look at the advertising that goes on in the Western world. And you can really tell the ideals of the nations involved. But lying in deception, it's become a way of life. It begins when we're little, perhaps with Santa Claus. It begins in some cultures with children being expected to lie. There's one culture on this planet where a rite of passage into manhood is when a son can tell his father a lie and his father believes it. That is part of the privilege of transforming into an adult. But it begins with small things. This last week, a teacher gave a review on Santa Claus and Christmas to her students. And she mentioned that Santa Claus was fictional, didn't really happen. The children broke out in tears. The parents got angry at the school. The school threatened to fire the teacher.

And the school board apologized to the parents.

It's something that continues, then, through education.

This lying in deception practices itself in love. You know how the youth are. They're out to get what they want, and so they learn the expressions like, I love you, to get what you want, or various sayings in order to get their way. There are many things that go on in life. Lying in deception sharpens in business and politics and ends in people inflating their own memoirs, changing their own history. And it affects all peoples in all cultures, down through all eras.

Humans have never been immune to lying or to deceit. It's difficult, then, for anybody to know who on the world on this earth is telling the truth.

There was an individual back in ancient times who was a Jewish man, and his name was Joseph, Ben Joseph or something like that. And old Ben Joseph was a very intelligent person. By age 14, he knew the scriptures very well, and actually some of the rabbis of the day came to listen to him speak. He was born about two years after the death of Jesus Christ.

By 14, you had the rabbis coming to listen to his wisdom. As a young man at age 21, he was a rabbi himself. He stood up with the Jews against the Romans, and the Romans were a very powerful, powerful nation at that time. He, as a rabbi, went to Rome when he was about 21 years old.

He was able to seek the release of some fellow rabbis that the Romans had imprisoned. When he went to Rome, he found the city of Rome was so big and so powerful, and there was so much going on, that he dropped his intentions and went home and began to tell the Jews, submit! Do not try to defend yourself against the Romans. And yet the Romans came in, and the Jews pushed against them, and he was running around telling them all, don't resist them, don't resist them, they're too powerful. And the Jews threw back the Romans.

So now this Ben Joseph is on the wrong side.

And a year later, the Romans came back and defeated the Jews. By this time, he had switched and become a military commander, and he was with the Jews fighting the Romans.

Only a bigger army came this time. So he was carted off, and he happened to tell the commander, someday you will be Caesar. Someday you will be the Caesar. The commander remembered that, and in time Nero died. And his successor was this general.

The general freed Ben Joseph from prison, because he remembered what he'd said to him. He freed him. And this individual now began to want to have a relationship with the new Caesar.

And so he changed his name to Flavius, and his other name to Josephus.

And the new Caesar said, you know what, we need somebody to write the history of the Jewish wars from our perspective. And so Josephus began this treatise of the the Jewish wars.

And in doing so, he wrote it, and it was no doubt edited by the Romans.

And what you have then is a book of lies, mixed with truth, about a traitor to a people that he wrote about, but it was edited, and he made it try to impress the Romans who were the dictators. An example of a work that we have today that is often quoted in religious circles, that cannot be trusted as far as you can throw it, because nobody knows what's true and what's not. I use that as an example of you and me. Where are we in regards to the truth? Where are we in relationship to the truth? Like the book of Josephus and his wars of the Jews, we have truth and we have error, because we're humans. But where are we going in our little book of life, as it were? Where are we headed? Are we floating down the road with humanity?

Again, it's difficult to know who's lying and telling the truth, just as with Josephus.

You cannot tell. In Isaiah chapter 59 and verse 4 is a scorching statement about society, society in general. 59 verse 4 says, no one calls for justice, nor does anyone plead for truth. Truth. Nobody's pleading for truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. That pretty much sums it up. Trusting in self-vanity and speaking lies. This is quite a different society than what God wants from us. How does God view us humans with that mentality? In Jeremiah chapter 28 and verse 28, we see that God has a certain viewpoint of those physical and spiritual people He calls His. This could apply to you and it can apply to me, as well as ancient Israel and the modern descendants of ancient Israel.

Jeremiah 7, 28, but you shall say to them, this is a nation which does not obey the voice of Jehovah their God, nor receives instruction. Truth has perished and is cut off from their mouth. Notice how far this is straight. Truth has perished and is cut off. It doesn't come out of the mouth. There's nothing that comes out anymore. It just doesn't happen. It's a way of life.

It's a way of thought. Even for so-called Christians, you know, one major religion says it's okay if people lie as long as they do so to help others. That's okay.

Dishonesty is so widespread that it is an accepted thing. It's just accepted.

So today, let's ask the question, how important is being truthful to you? Is a little dishonesty okay? A little dishonesty something you hate? You hate to see it in yourself.

I'd like to take a look at the topic of truthfulness and honesty. A brief look at truth and honesty. And hopefully this will encourage us to understand that these mental and verbal things are very, very important for you and for me. You know, temptation to lie is always there.

Why? Because it's the easy route to gain and to escape. The easy route. If you're selling something and somebody asks you questions, you're going to say what the good things are of whatever it is you're selling. It's the easy way. And if somebody says to you, did you do something?

Are you guilty of this? Well, do you want to really be guilty of that? Do you want to be looked down upon? Do you want to be corrected, disciplined? Do you want to suffer loss? Or you just want to say the magic word? No. No, I didn't do it. It wasn't me. Well, it's powerful. It's easy. You can escape personal loss. It's like in court. How do you plead? Have you ever heard somebody say, I plead guilty? No. You've got some guy there. He's covered in blood. He's got a gun in his pocket. How do you plead? Oh, not guilty, Your Honor.

It's the hope that you can escape personal loss. Cut a deal.

This is a subject that affects many aspects of our life. We are tempted to exaggerate, to fib, to slant things, white lie, misrepresent, overstate, understate, whatever it is, to smoothly embellish and enhance our position. And yet, should this be so?

In Proverbs 6 and verse 16 are the famous six things that God hates, and seven are an abomination to Him.

Here's what it says. These six things Jehovah hates. Yes, seven are hateful to His soul. Reading this from the modern King James Version. Seven are hateful to His life, to God, to the living God.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be hated by God or be something that God hates.

But here's what He hates, and they're hateful to Him. A proud look, a lying tongue.

Verse 19, a false witness who speaks lies.

You know, out of those things, twice are mentioned lying in falsehood.

God hates that. He hates it with a passion, we might say.

He mentions lying here twice. It's opposite of His nature. It's something that He just really, really, really hates.

In Proverbs chapter 12 and verse 22, it says, lying lips are hateful to God, but those who deal truly are His delight. Now, which do you want to be? Hated by God, or do you want to be His delight? I ask myself that question, and you know what? Every time I come up with the same answer. I want to be His delight. I want to be hated by God.

Those who deal truly are His delight. If God hates it, we should hate it.

We want to have His mind, His nature, the mind of Christ, be perfect like the Father. In God, there is no dishonesty. There's no deceit. There's no lying. It's just truth. In Titus 1 verse 2, it says, God cannot lie.

He says, lying lips are hateful in Proverbs 12. And then in Titus 1 verse 2, God cannot lie.

I want to read this verse to you. It says, On hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie promised before the eternal times.

Now that's a mouthful. I'm going to read it again. Actually, it's very nice.

On hope of eternal life, which you and I have, which God who cannot lie promised. We're glad that He promised us eternal life. Before the eternal times, we know a long time ago He promised eternal life. Now, let's ask the question, what if God lied a little?

What if God lied some? What would this sentence mean to us? On hope of eternal life, well, is there eternal life? We don't know. Sometimes God lies. Sometimes He doesn't. So, we're kind of hoping there's eternal life, but you know, it's not something you can really bank on.

God who doesn't lie or cannot lie, well, we know that since He does sometimes, and He promised before the eternal times, well, you know, but you can't trust His promise, and we don't know that there were eternal times. We don't know. I mean, what would you be left with? What would you be left with if God had ever lied once? That phrase right there would become horrible. And yet, it's a beautiful phrase. We have hope of eternal life because there is eternal life, and God cannot lie, and He promised that there would be. Wow. And He's promised this since He started this whole physical creation. Paul said in Hebrews that it's impossible for God to lie, and it's a wonderful thing. I wish it were impossible for me to be inaccurate, untruthful, slanting, or anything else that my human nature would want to do in various circumstances. But I'm not God yet. I want to be, and so do you. What we need to do in order to reach that goal that we seek is to get rid of things that shouldn't be in us. And one of those things is a lack of truthfulness and dishonesty.

We know that God's plan is true, and we know that it will happen. And that will take place with or without us. In John 4, verse 23, we find here that Jesus isn't calling. I'm sorry. God is not seeking all worshippers. You know, come on, everybody wants to worship me. Come on, come on. Bring Santa with you. Bring a rabbit, some eggs. Whatever it is, doesn't matter. Bring a little skeleton and, you know, and them devil outfits. That's okay.

John 4, verse 23, the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers, true worshipers, will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship Him. That's who the Father is seeking to worship Him, is those who will worship in truth. Verse 24, God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.

We must have the mind of God and we must have the truth, not only of God, but from ourselves. We must do it in a truthful way. Try to remember that when you think of truth. That's what God is seeking.

People of the truth to worship Him. That is the work of the church. That is the work of the ministry.

We go back to 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 4 through 7. 1 Timothy 2, verse 4.

God, our Savior, desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Doesn't want us to come to the knowledge of a bunch of pagan, fake, invented lies. No, come to the knowledge of the truth. What is the truth? Thy word is truth. The knowledge of God's word is truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.

Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Now notice the purpose of the church.

For which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, says Paul, I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. That is the purpose of the ministry of the church, of everyone in the body of Christ, to spread this edification in truth, not lying. There are those who will come in, the Bible says, with lying lips and those who will have self-centered agendas, but that is not the purpose of the church and those are called false apostles. To be part of God's kingdom, we have to become godly. We've got to put away the old man.

It says in Ephesians 4, in verse 25, therefore putting away lying. It's amazing, He jumps right on that one. Verse 24 says, put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. And then He jumps right in. This new man put away lying.

Let each man speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

We are to put off the old man.

And part of that is to get rid of this self-serving lack of truth and lack of honesty.

Now, here's a question. I think I've asked this question here before. Let me ask it again. When is it permissible to lie? When is it okay for a Christian to lie? It's funny. I've asked that question before and I've gotten a long list of answers as to when it's okay to lie. When this happens, well, it's okay. When that, you know, when somebody dies, you don't want to tell a kid, somebody's got a gun to your head, somebody's going to shoot somebody in the next room, and they're asking where they are, la-di-da-di-da. When is it okay to lie? Well, you could see if it's okay for God to lie just once or twice or three times in special occasions what it would do to us. When is it okay to lie? Let's go back to Revelation 21, verse 8 and see when it is okay to lie. There is a time when you can lie, and here it is. 21, verse 8, the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderous, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire which burns with brimstone which is the second death. That's the time you want to lie when you want to be in a lake of fire and be in the second death because it didn't say some liars. It said all liars. If you don't want to be there and I don't want to be there, then we don't lie. Okay? We're honest and we're truthful. Now, when Jesus Christ was put in a position of being on trial for his life and the words that they were trying to get out of him would have gotten him killed, what did he do? He was silent, wasn't he? He didn't answer. You know, there's a time to just not speak just because somebody asks you where the person is in the next room so they can shoot him doesn't mean you have to tell them to be truthful. You can just say, you know, it's none of your business. Or, you know, what other people do really is their responsibility. And so it was when Jesus came to the time when he knew he was going to die that he did not give them the personal satisfaction of letting them ball him up in a bunch of answers, but he simply was quiet.

We can do that as well. You know, tell the truth only. Never lie ever.

Why doesn't mankind follow Christ's teachings? Ever wonder about that? Why is there all this talk about Jesus Christ, but nobody obeys him? He's the Lord of the Sabbath, but nobody keeps the Sabbath. He says, do my commandments, but nobody keeps his commandments. They do away with his commandments. They said he did away with them. He said, I didn't do away with them. I magnified. I made them bigger. No, no, no, you didn't. And no man's gone to heaven. Oh, yeah, everybody goes to heaven. Why do people just not follow Jesus Christ? And why do Christians fight in war? They've got this idea that, ah, we need to go kill each other. Protestants against Catholics, and Protestants against Protestants, and you know, one country of Christians against another country of Christians. Why does this happen? In John chapter 8, verse 43 through 45, Jesus answers that question, and it's all about truth. John chapter 8 and verse 43, why do you not know my speech? The answer is because you cannot hear my word. You are of the devil as father, and the lusts of your father you will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not abide in the truth because there is no truth in him. And we as human beings are children of one who has no truth in him. Does that tell us why we're not truthful as a human race? When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. That's why the world does not follow Jesus Christ. He tells the truth, but they don't believe him because we as humans are listening to a lying father. And that's the way we are. That's the way we are by nature. And people will call Jesus a liar. And the biggest religious holiday in the western world pronounces Jesus Christ as a liar and a fraud. Because his only sign was that he would be in the grave three days and three nights, and yet they're so happy to go out and enjoy a sun-worshipping service that pronounces him dead one night and two days, and happy, as it were, to proclaim him a fraud. You know, it's not the world's fault.

It's not society's fault. It's not religion's fault, really, because we have been so taken captive mentally by this father that Jesus Christ calls him. We have followed that, and humanity is blinded because God has not opened the eyes. But he's opened your eyes and my eyes, and you and I need to begin to have quite a contrast between ourselves and the world. We're to come out of the world. We're to set ourselves apart and be separate. We're to be different as light and darkness don't mix. We are to come out of the darkness and be light.

There's a huge contrast between God's ways and Satan, between light and dark. There's just a massive, massive difference. And so the question for you and me becomes, which do we want to be off?

Which do we really want to be off? Who want the lighter? Do we want the dark?

Proverbs 12, 22, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are his delight. This comes back to show us again how important truthfulness is to God, a delight to him when we tell the truth. Now notice, you know, you tend to think of this as, well, I walked around today and I said some truthful things. Well, I don't know if God really gets excited about that. What God gets excited about is, you know, when the gun's to your head, you know, when the policeman's there. Were you speeding? Ah, what are you going to say? What are you going to say? You know, I was not only speeding, but I was speeding intentionally. I would have been going faster if this car had another gear. You know, that's what probably would get God excited. When you, you know, the Bible says, when you swear to your own hurry, you follow a pledge that you have made to your own loss.

When you follow through and your words are, God would get excited about that. When you tell the truth that, yes, I did it and what happened that was very bad and very wrong was my responsibility. I'll take responsibility for that. And that's something that it says in Proverbs 12, 22, is delightful to God. Delightful to God.

I don't know. We have this thing about humans, and I don't know. I don't understand it. I've got it, too. So do you. But we can get on our knees and just pour out our hearts to God and apologize and repent. But someone else says something about us. Like, what? What are you talking about? You said this little bitty, tiny little thing that was almost negative or could be having negative connotation about me. How could you possibly do that? You know? We're just so defensive about ourself. God loves truth and honesty. If we go to God and we say, you know, I'm just... I am a creepy guy. And I'm just self-centered. And then somebody else says, you're selfish. You know, hello? What are we? Two opinions here? Are we on the fence? Are we rotten with God but perfect with humans? Why don't we say, God, I'm sorry. I'm going to try again. And somebody says, you sure ourselves, oh, you don't know the end of it. Hey, let me tell you some of the things I've been finding out about myself. You think that was bad.

Why aren't we... What is this lack of maybe truthfulness? Or maybe we're lying to God.

Maybe I don't really see anything wrong, but I better repent just in case. Just kind of be covered. You know I'm perfect, but you know, with God, he may see something that we don't.

So what is it? How honest are we? Those who deal truthfully are his delight.

Godly men and women love truth and honesty, but carnal men love power and protection from lies. Lies are powerful. Lies sell things. Lies get you things. Lies get you out of trouble. So where are we going to be? Godly or carnal? You've got to hate lying, deceit, gain from those things, protection from those things. Colossians 3, 9, Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds. Zechariah 8, 16, These are the things you shall do. Speak each man the truth to his neighbor, and give judgments in your gates for truth, justice, and peace. I mean, these are ideals, and they sound good, but what about the practical application of them? You know, everything in the Bible, everything in our new life with Christ, everything in the truth with our true Father is truth. It's all associated with truth. If you think about it. John 14, verse 6, is one example. John 14, verse 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. That's pretty clear, pretty powerful. Now, there's everything to do with the salvation. He says to pray in the model prayer at the end. It says, for yours is the kingdom, kingdom of God, and the power, the power to reach the kingdom, and the glory, the glory, and the appreciation, and the kingdom, and the power forever. That's all God's. And this is who God is. He is the way to that. He is the truth, and He is the life of and from that. God is all about truth. The Bible says, your word is truth. In Zechariah chapter 8, verse 3, you'll read about the New Jerusalem, not the New Jerusalem. Actually, Jerusalem when Christ returns at His Second Coming, it will be the city. You know what the city is called there? The city of truth. Zion, Jerusalem, with Christ reigning, will be called the city of truth. You know, this concept of God and truth, and the kingdom of God and truth, and you know, it is massive. It is foundational. And we are to participate in that and reflect the truth. In 1 John chapter 3, verses 18 and 19, 1 John chapter 3, verse 18, 1 John says, Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. In other words, put this spirit of God, this mind of God into literal application. If we love in deed and in truth, verse 19, by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. Do you want to be of the truth? Do you want to be of God, of the kingdom, of Christ, of the Father?

Well, this is what the people of God are. They are those who love, they are those who are honest, and they are truthful. We want to be of the truth, of what God is, become like God is.

You know, even the feasts that we so love reflect God's truthfulness. They reflect His reign of righteousness. They reflect the kingdom. We're to observe them in truth, including the Sabbath, which we're observing today. In 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 8, a familiar Scripture that applies in this topic and understanding this topic, in the Passover that is coming up, it says, Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. You know, that unleavened bread represents Jesus Christ in the Passover, and that is sincerity and truth. The next day, and for the next seven days, that unleavened bread is to represent you in sincerity and truth, as humble as the sin of the leaven has gone out of it. It's something that is humble, yet solid. It's truthful. It's honest. You know, there's just something about unleavened bread that it is what it is, and it ain't what it ain't.

You know, when you see it, you know what it is. There's no surprises.

It's telling you the truth. It says, you know, I'm only this thick. It's not like that lion piece of bread next to it has the same amount of wheat, but says, Oh, I'm big. No, I'm big.

There's more to me. Not like that puny little guy over there. Eat that thing, you go away hungry.

The same amount weighs the same. This one's just lying his head off. I taste better. I smell better. I look better. I'm just better all the way around. They're exactly the same. One's just got holes in it, and that's all there is to it. And so when you look at the unleavened bread, you say, Well, look at that. If I eat that, I know I would just kind of be sort of that way, you know, and it is.

And it wouldn't taste any better. It wouldn't taste any worse. There's not much you can get it to do that would make it taste better or worse. It's just going to be what it is.

But this thing over here, people keep playing with it. Oh, let's try to make it into a croissant, you know, or let's make it into a twisty roll or a hot bun or, you know, some kind of pancake, doughnut. Keep trying to do something over here that's fake, you know, make it into something it'll never be. But this thing over here, every time you see it, you know, in the story, say, I know why I'm not buying you. Because you are what you are, and you were the last time.

And that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something more exciting.

And so I'll go for the false premise of air and, you know, whatever else they put in this stuff. And we'll keep trying over here. But I know you're there. And if you're really what I need, I'll come back to you. Well, that's just the way it is. We're to keep the unleavened bread of or with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. And that really represents us. We aren't anything real hot-sy-totsy. We are just to be solid, trustworthy. What you see is what you get.

What you say is what is true. So that when the chips are down and people are in need of something, they say, you know what? I can't trust all these baked goods over here to give me the nutrition I need. But I know that genuine piece of bread over there, that genuine piece of flat bread, I know it has the ingredients, it has the substance, it'll keep me alive, it'll last a long time.

It's not playing games. I can pack a lot of it in a small space, and I can take it on my journey with me, and I know I will always have food. This stuff over here is always moldy or who knows what's going on. You can never trust it to not be stale or yada yada. This stuff over here has probably been in the cupboard for a year or two, and it's the same as the day I bought it.

It just is the same. It's dependable. It's reliable. And that's what we are to be.

That's what you and I need to be. And that's what our God is to us. He's a rock. He's solid. He's not changing. He's always the same today, yesterday, and forever, and He will always be the same.

And that's what you and I need to be. In conclusion, you have been called to the truth.

You know, Jesus Christ was the logos or the spokesman, and His Word is truth. Everything He says is truth, and we are to become truth.

It is said that out of the heart the mouth speaks. Jesus Christ told us that.

It's also been said, what you think is what you are. You know, what are we? Are we truth on the inside? If so, it should be coming out of our mouth. It should be something we're living and doing, not faking, not pretending, but it should come from within. And so, let's become people of truth and people of honesty. I'd like to conclude by reading Philippians 4 and verse 8. Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8 says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, think of these words, truth, nobility, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report, if there's any virtue, if anything is praiseworthy, meditate on these things. In other words, internalize them, think about them, become a person of truth who is noble and just and pure, lovely and good report, virtuous, praiseworthy. And by doing so, we will be cleaning up our part of the Bride of Christ. And when the groom returns, the bride will have made herself ready for the one who is called faithful and true.