Live | Thou Shalt Not Lie

A “small” lie never stays small. When we take the Ninth Commandment seriously “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” we start seeing how deception quietly rewires our relationships, our integrity, and even our spiritual direction. We talk plainly about why this may be the easiest commandment to break, why the world normalizes it, and why God calls His people to something better: a life built on truth that lasts.

We also pull back the curtain on the spiritual battle behind everyday dishonesty. Satan traffics deception, questions God’s Word, and repeats the same strategy he used in Genesis: casting doubt on God’s character, God’s promises, and God’s authority. If Jesus is “the truth,” then learning to speak truthfully is part of becoming more like Him, not just cleaning up our language.

From there, we get practical about how lies show up: deliberate lies, deceitful exaggeration and half-truths, and the destructive power of gossip that steals a person’s good name. Then we land on the best news we can offer: Jesus died for all liars. Scripture doesn’t let us rank sins to feel safe, but it does point us to a Savior who carried every sin to the cross and rose again to prove His promises are true.

Listen, share this message with someone who needs hope, and subscribe for more Christ-centered sermons. If this helped you, leave a review and tell us: where do you feel the biggest pressure to bend the truth?

Transcript

Welcome And Podcast Mission

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Welcome to the Kid Us Off First Podcast, where we're building transformed lives one message at a time. Each week you'll hear Christ-centered sermons from Dr. J. Perry Fowler, rooted in the truth of God's Word. This is where real faith meets real life, because a life built on truth is a life that lasts.

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Well, good morning. What a great day this has already been. Hey, amen. And we're expecting God to do great things in our lives this week. How many of you are excited about what God has for you this week? Amen. Let's do that. Let's live out our

The Ninth Commandment Read Aloud

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faith. And take your Bible today, and what we're going to do is we're going to look at a very, very familiar ten, one of the Ten Commandments, actually number nine. We're going to look at number nine today. Here at Kennesaw First, what we do is we go through the Bible verse to verse to verse. I often say we may be a Baptist church, but more than that, we are a Bible church. And when we study God's word together, God's word will never return void. So you're not here wasting your time today, neither am I, because God's word is going to change us today. Somebody say hallelujah. Hallelujah. So let's take God's word and let's read what it says in verse 16. It says, you shall not. We've seen that a lot. You shall not in the Ten Commandments. Here we go. You shall not. Say this with me. You shall not. Here it is, bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not, say it with me, bear false witness against your neighbor. Now that's God's word. That's one of his commandments. But yet as we look at it, we really understand it. Let's dive deep and let's see what God has to say to

A Seatbelt Story About Denial

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us today. You know, several years ago, I was reading a story about a police officer. I love police officers. Matter of fact, when I was a little boy, that was my dream. I wanted to become a police officer. So I've always loved police officers. I enjoy being a part of Kennesaw and being a part of the chaplaincy program here in Kennesaw. And it's a blessing to be able to get to know police officers. And we appreciate our police officers that work here at the church. But I was studying this week, and as I was, I heard a story about a police officer that pulled over a lady because she had not fastened her seatbelt. Well, he turned around and he came and he pulled her over, and when he pulled her over, she immediately realized her seatbelt was not on, so she latched it quickly, and the police officer came up to the window and he said, Listen, ma'am, I pulled you over because you did not have your seatbelt on. She said, Oh, yes, I did. Look right now. I have my seatbelt on. He says, Well, how long has your seatbelt been on? The last 30 seconds? To which she responded and says, No, since I left the house. And he paused and he kind of looked at her and he says, Okay, I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take your word for it. You obviously, uh you obviously are telling me that you had your seatbelt on before you left the house, but I still have to give you a ticket. And she said, Well, why? And he said, Because you fashioned your seatbelt through your steering wheel. It's exactly what you did. But yet, when when we think about lying today, here's what we see in this passage. The Bible says, you should not bear false witness. And we pause there, and then we see how that plays itself out in relationships. It talks about you shall not bear false witness, and then it moves on to saying, against your neighbor. Now, when we look at this passage, what we recognize is we recognize that it's this is one of the Ten Commandments, and in those commandments, what we realize is this is probably the easiest commandment to break. You can look at most of the commandments and you say, Well, these commandments I haven't committed. I hope no one in here today can say, I've broken the commandment of murder. But there, you know, you know, I maybe you have. But that's something about God's grace too. You know, Moses was a murderer and and and Paul was a murderer, but most of us probably say, no, I haven't murdered anybody. Hopefully, most of us cannot say, you know, we we would pause and say, No, I have not committed adultery. Now I hope greatly that is not something that's happened in your life, but yet we see that happening even in Scripture, people committing adultery. And we see Jesus looking at the adulterous woman and he ministers to her, and we also see that Jesus goes and tells this adulterous woman, go and sin no more. So we've studied these commandments and we see that so easily. It seems that we can look at these commandments and say, Well, here's some that I haven't done. And that's more of what we do most of the time. We say, Well, I haven't broken this commandment, I haven't broken that commandment. And we focus on thinking maybe, maybe God grades by scale, you know, by curve, by by a scale that involves a curve. Maybe if I didn't break these, then I'm okay with God. But you know, nobody's perfect. Let's say it together, nobody's perfect. And we hear that all the time. People say nobody's perfect, but we're especially not perfect when it comes to this commandment, because the Bible says and clearly tells us that we ourselves are not to bear false witness. But the Bible teaches us as well that we have probably, most of us think about it this way, we'd admit, listen, I agree with God, I've lied. All right. Everybody that has ever lied in the house, would you help me out? Would you just, let's just make a confession today. Would you just say, I've lied? I've lied at one point in my life. Matter of fact, USA Today said that we lied at least two times a day. And uh I hope you haven't already lied. I'm not gonna have any show of hands. I did early service. I said, listen, if you've already lied today, will you raise your hand? I had one man go to confession that more this morning. We dismissed him so he could go have donuts and coffee because he already had it figured out. So here's what we look at today. We look at this particular passage and we say, well, why is lying so easy? And we're gonna look at that in just a few moments. But it seems like lying is like the easiest things for us to do. And I want to just explain something to you. The devil himself is a liar. Now we recognize that the devil is a liar, and Jesus called him the devil for that reason. And for that, we pause and we agree with the psalmist, and we all just kind of pause and say, Yeah, I've all we've lied at least once in our life. And we're like the psalmist who said in Psalm 120, verse 2, he says, Oh Lord, deliver my soul, oh Lord, from lying lips. Lord, somehow would you deliver my soul from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue. That's what the psalmist said. Now, when we pause and we we we look at that particular psalm, we can identify it with so easily because we have all lied. But you say in Colossians chapter chapter 3, verse 9, this is the command. The Bible says, do not lie to one another. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you put off the old man. Seeing that you put off the old man. So, a Christian, if you know Christ, here's the good news. We are no longer the old man. We have been, we are being recreated into the new man. The old has passed away, the new has come, and God is working in our life. So it is very appropriate we pause and say, okay, how do I agree with the psalmist today? How can I find what the psalmist was praying for? How can I see that happen in my life? How can this happen? It happens simply by us pausing and saying the Lord, Lord, deliver me from lying lips. And we pause to see how God Himself does that. God does that so often by strengthening our convictions, by helping us to understand what the Bible teaches and gives us the Holy Spirit to help us from within to have the change of life that we're looking for. But as we strengthen our convictions when it comes to lying, because so easy, it's just easy to flippantly lie. Matter of fact, we even say this, oh, that was only a white lie. Have you ever heard that? I was only a white lie. That was just kind of a little bitty thing, it's not that significant. You're gonna see by the end of the messages how significant even one little lie is. But how do we strengthen our

Why Satan Loves Liars

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convictions? Number one, we understand that Satan loves liars. Now, I don't want you to turn to your neighbor and say anything right now. But here's the fact Satan loves liars. Maybe he loves when we lie. And the reason why it is, is because he's a liar himself. And one of the plans that God has for us is to change us, to get rid of the old man and put on the new man, to take off the old and become more like Christ. And as we want to be more like the new man and we want Christ to live inside of us, what happens in our life is Satan so greatly comes against us, and one of the ways he comes against us is in this commandment specifically, because it seems to be the easiest commandment to break. And why is that? It's because Satan is a professional liar for one, but number two, because God wants to make you more like Jesus. Now, I do want you to say this. God wants me to be more like Jesus. But if that's what we're to be like, Jesus says, I am the way and I am the, here it is, truth. I am the truth. So what we find is Satan is just the opposite. Jesus himself called Satan the devil. You say, well, what's that? Is that his first name? No, that's a title for him. As a matter of fact, he looked, Jesus looked at some of the people that were condemning him and some of the people that were lying about him. And Jesus said this about Satan himself as he spoke to them. And he said, Listen, you guys are just like your father. You guys are just like your father. Have you ever heard anybody say, you're just like your dad? Of course you've heard that. But you are just, Jesus is calling them out. You are just like your father. But what is that father like? See, you either have a heavenly father in your life, or you have a father who is the father of lies. Let me read this verse to you. This is what Jesus said to these Jewish leaders. Your father is the devil. And the lust of your father you do. He was a murderer from the beginning. Now here it is, and speaks not the truth, because there is no truth in him. Now, when you think about God, you understand God is completely truthful. Jesus said, I am the way and I am the truth. But yet when Jesus spoke about the devil, he says, Listen, you can be just like him. If he is your father, spiritually you don't have a heavenly father, but you have a you have a you have a devil who is the father. He will be the father of lies in your life. Follow this now. And the result of that will be that you will in some way reflect the devil more than you reflect the Heavenly Father. The easiest way for the devil to get you to be like him is to convince you that it is okay to tell lies. Why? Because he was a murderer for the beginning and he was a liar. And the truth is not in him. Now, with that, what I'd say is this, I want to be like Jesus. I don't want to be like the devil. I don't want to be, I don't want to reflect his image. Listen, you're made in the image of God. And when you are made in the image of God, one of the things God loves is when you reflect that. And when Jesus redeemed us, he loves us when we reflect that we're born again, that we're a new man, there's something new that's happened inside of us. And so we love it. Jesus loves it when we reflect the truthfulness of who he is. So this is how deep this thing can go. When you think about lying, listen, it's so much deeper, it's so much more spiritual than you may even imagine. And the reason why Satan wants you to be a liar is because he is a liar and he loves liars. He loves it when we lie. So from that, what we look at today is we look at this commandment and we pause and we understand that Satan is a deceiver. He's a liar. The word devil means slanderer, which gives, finds its roots in this whole idea of being a liar. And so 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians rather verse 11, verse 14 says, Satan disguises himself, here it is, as the angel of light. And he, here it is, deceives the whole world. What do we see him doing in Exodus? What are we seeing him doing in Numbers? What do we see him doing in Deuteronomy? What do we see him doing throughout the whole Bible? But we especially see it in the book of Genesis. In

Satan’s First Lies In Genesis

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the book of Genesis, we don't have to go far. We go to the third chapter of the book of Genesis, and when we do, we see some of the things that Satan lies about. The first thing we see he does is he tries to convince us of these lies. And one of the things he lies about is he lies about God's person. Remember when Adam and Eve, when they sinned, what we find this enemy doing is he said, he cast doubt on what God said. He says, Did God say to you? Or did God tell you this? You know what he's doing? He's trying to cast doubt and questioning the honesty and the holiness of God. Isn't that interesting that the one who is the most unholy, the one that's most unhonest and not honest, is the one that's trying to convince us that God's not telling us the truth. And that's why God's word is so imperative. We live in a world today where people question God's word. It goes from the age of the earth all the way up to social issues, marital issues, relationship issues. He's always questioning God. Did God really say this to you? Is this how you should interpret what God said? No wonder in our world we're constantly struggling with people questioning, and we have church after church and spiritual movement after spiritual movement that's leading in two different directions. You know why? Because the devil is sitting and saying, Did God really say this to you? Is this really the right interpretation of what God said? So he questions, he throws doubt on God's character. The second thing he does is he throws doubt on God's promises. He'll lie to you about God's promises. What he said to Adam and Eve is he says, Oh, you surely will not die. There's no accountability here. You can do what you want to do. You can be what you want to be. You can live your life however you want to live it. And then finally, finally, he will cast doubt on God's position. And what he'll say is, you know what, that's really not true. God's pulling the wool over your eyes. Here's what God's doing. God knows on the day you eat of that fruit, you're going to be as little G-O-D-S. Do you see what Satan does? He's constantly throwing doubt, he's deceiving, he's lying. And no wonder he wants us to be the same way. No wonder he's this particular passage, we have to pause and we have to ask ourselves a question. We have to ask ourselves, listen, am I reflecting Jesus? Is Jesus, am I following his word? Is he changing me from the inside out? Or am I questioning everything that he says in his word? Am I blowing it off? Am I making it something less than it really should be? Or how am I handling God's word? I want to encourage you today. Listen, you and I, how does your young man cleanse his way? By taking heed to the word of the Lord. That's the call of God on our life. Why? Because Jesus wants to change this. He wants the old man to be made into the new man. And when we come to know Christ, he begins to convict us, and there's a deep level of understanding that listen, my motive for walking with God is not just to go to heaven, but is to bring a little bit of heaven here on earth in my life. For me to be more like Christ. And that's why Paul said, be imitators of God. Be imitators of me as I'm an imitator of God. Can you imagine saying that to your friends? What a glorious thing that is. But Satan loves liars. Why? Because they reflect his image instead of God's. And here's the thing: he can't get God to lie. He can't get God to be unholy, but he can get us to be, and he'll take it. That's what he wants. So when we look at this passage, what we understand is Satan traffics deception. But God always tells the truth. Say that with me. Satan traffics deception. Say it with me. Satan traffics deception, but God will always tell me the truth. There we go. All right. You know, I was I always like stories. I like to hear stories, and and I was hearing a story about a lady several years ago, you could get on Amtrak, and if your child was uh up to six years old, when they hit six years old, you had to pay for the ticket. But uh they could go all the way to the last day, as long as they weren't six years old, they could uh they could ride free. And there was a lady, she had a son that was six years old, and anyway, he was not just six years old, but he was a big six-year-old, but he also he was closer to seven instead of six, but she wanted to be able to f him to ride for free because she was going across country, and so uh what she did was she told her son, she said, Listen, this is what I want you to do. What I want you to do is when they ask you how old you are, tell them you're five. And so that's what happened. Uh they got on the train, got up there to get tickets. How old are you? I'm five. They got on the train, one of the guys came through and says, Listen, how old are you, son? He goes, I'm five. And they rode all night long. And as they rode all night long, the next morning when it was kind of quiet and everybody was just kind of waking up and kind of walking through the cabin. One of the conductors came back and he saw that little boy. He said, Hey son, when are you turning six? And he said, About the time I get off this train, that's when I'm gonna turn six. It's so easy to lie, isn't it? And there's so many reasons why we do lie. But it's Satan's attempt in all of this. I just want you to understand it. The reason why we want you to lie, one of the main reasons if you're a Christian today is because it reflects him so well. And he loves it. Satan loves liars. The second thing that we see that we when we're trying to build up our convictions and to understand, okay, how do I how do I build up my convictions so that the Holy Spirit will use that in my life?

Three Kinds Of Lies

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What conviction do I need to have? The second conviction is the understanding that lying is easy. It really is easy, it's super easy. And uh when we see it's you know the art of Line is become an art these days. If you don't believe it, just watch a political ad. Have you ever noticed that? I mean, I have never seen so much lying, so much deception, so much tear people down stuff, then during political moments. It just seems to be like the MO of our world. It's like almost a marketing strategy. Lying itself. But what we find is that Satan loves liars, and because he loves liars, what he does is he has different forms and ways of leading us to lies. For example, the first is the deliberate lie. You know what the deliberate lie is? That's when you just lie straight up. You say, yeah, that's just you just tell something that's wrong. You just lie to your neighbor. You deceive your neighbor. You just do that. For example, we see that often in the Bible. We see that the serpent himself deliberately lied to Adam and Eve and deceived them. We see it as well with Abraham as he lied about Sarah to Abimelech. And God had to intervene to preserve her purity. Also, Jacob deliberately lied to Isaac and stole Esau's blessing. Potiphar's wife, she deliberately lied, and Joseph ended up in prison. And then also Ananas and Sapphira, they lied to the Holy Spirit, and the result was they didn't go to prison. They went to the grave. I mean, that's pretty strong stuff in the book of Acts. And Peter even lied. Peter lied when they said, hey, aren't you one of the Galileans? And don't you know Jesus? And he denied Jesus three times. Now, why do we do that? Why do we deliberately lie? For one reason is it's because we want to accommodate our own desires. We're like, okay, I'll lie because you know what? This is gonna help me out. That's what we think. We think this is gonna help me out to tell something that's wrong or to manipulate our circumstances. We do it for that reason, but also just to save our own skin. We'll lie to save our own skin. But I want to tell you something today. Jesus never lied. Now that's who we look to. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. And as we we want God's spirit to sanctify and change us, we build up ourselves in the word of God. And the word of God teaches us that Jesus, he was the word. And the Bible says the word became flesh among us. He made his dwelling place among us. We beheld his glory. Listen to this, the glory of the one and only Son of God who came from the Father. Here it is, full of grace. And does anybody know how they finish the verse? Grace and what? Truth. See, Jesus came and from the very beginning he told the truth. That is very, very important. Theologically, we need to set that in our mind. We need to know one of the first things we need to know is Jesus never sinned. Jesus, I mean see, Jesus never lied. Not once did he lie. And what a glorious thing that is. And I'm grateful that he did. But that is a deliberate lie. But then there's also the deceitful lie. Psalm 5, verse 6 says this the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. God doesn't like that. He says, the bloody and deceitful man, I'm going to abhor him. I don't like that. And when we read that, what we recognize the word deceitful here is a it's a Hebrew word. It's uh minrnah, uh mrnah is how it's pronounced. And what it's it's actually borrowed from the financial world, and it means ill-gotten gain. Uh it's about kind of basically inflating the truth or decreasing the truth. You can do it that way. And deceit does that. It'll expand the truth either beyond its limits or it deflates it belong beyond its limits, but that's what we'll do. Anybody here ever exaggerate? That's a form of lying. And so when we study about it here in Exodus chapter 20, verse 16, we have to pause and say, okay, there's not just the deliberate lie, but then there's the deceitful lie. And then also there's the deluded

Gossip That Steals A Good Name

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lie. And it's very similar to the deceitful lie. The only thing is about it, it's one of the most damaging forms of lies because it destroys the character of the people, specifically through gossip. So when we study it and we understand it in scripture as it's defined, gossip is one of those ways that we lie. We will tell something about somebody that's not true. Let me just encourage you, even if it is true, is it the best thing to do? Absolutely not. You know, we we we should be speaking, you know, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are of good report, the Bible says, think on these things. And I'd say, say those things too. Your mom may ever say, if you don't have something good to say, don't say it at all. But but the this this this this type of lie, this deluded lie, will often take the truth and it'll it'll it'll it'll maybe blow it up, or maybe it'll take the uh maybe something that's uh that's uh or something that's not true and it'll blow it up, or maybe it'll take the truth and it'll make it less. That's what happens when we do that. It reminds me of a pastor. You gotta be careful about pastors, by the way. Uh you gotta be real careful. I can say that because I am one. But uh a pastor had a lady that was gossiping in his church about him. He found out the story, and the story was that the pastor had been stopping by. There was a there was a single lady in the church that was going through some tough times. She had several children, uh, and she was a single mother, and he was stopping by and bringing some food, and he was trying to check and make sure that her rent was paid and different things like that. And this gossipy lady drove down uh the street one day and saw his car parked in front of her house. And when she did, she went and she got on the telephone, and what she did is she called and said, Listen, I just saw the pastor's car in front of that single lady's house. Now you can imagine what she's doing is she's diluting something. Uh and so what she does is she dilutes it, and before long it gets out, you know, that he was breaking one of the other commandments with the single lady. So the pastor didn't know what to do. He said, What's the best way for me to handle this? So he figured it out. What he decided to do is the lady that was gossiping, he just went and parked his car in front of her house and he let it be there though the whole weekend, and it kind of solved the problem. You know what I'm saying? Gotta watch out for those pastors. Gotta watch out for them. But when we think about these three different types of lies, we have to understand that honestly, gossiping is stealing. It's stealing away somebody's character. It's when you when you take something that's not true and you blow it up, or maybe even something that is true and you blow it up. What the Bible says is this. The Bible says in Proverbs 22, verse 1, a good name is more desirable than great riches. That's what it says. And it says this to be highly esteemed is better than having silver or gold. Listen, the people that we talk about, their character really matters. The most valuable thing that they have in their life. Do you hear what I'm saying? Outside of Jesus Christ being their Savior and Lord is their name. And when we go and we gossip and we take things like that and we dilute their life and dilute their character, what it is, is it's really not just, it's not just lying, but it's also stealing, it's stealing away their character. And the Bible teaches that that is abhorrent to God. God abhors this. And so the third thing to know when we're building our theological premise and understanding, okay, what what is it?

Jesus Died For All Liars

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These convictions that I need to have so that in turn, God's spirit can move in my life. And I can understand that this third thing that I believe is so imperative when it comes to understanding this verse and the power of lying is to understand that Jesus died for all liars. Jesus died for all liars. We are going to shout that, or I'll stop and we'll just keep saying it, okay? So Jesus died for all liars. Let's do this. Jesus died for all liars. One more time, just to bless my heart. Jesus died for all liars. Thank God he died for all liars. Because you know why? I've been one and you've been one too. Psalm 116, verse 11 says, I said in my haste, all men are liars. This is what the psalmist said. And he says, I got a little hasty about it, but what I did is I just got so frustrated in my culture, in my world. And when I got frustrated, I just looked and I said, just everybody's a liar. He was just showing how frustrating it is that we live in a culture, in a society that tears down each other through lies or deceives people. But where does it come from? It comes from Satan himself, who loves liars. He loves it when we lie. But here's the good news Jesus Christ wants us to know we can be delivered by his great love and grace. Now let me show you this real quick.

Why All Sin Is Mortal

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And when I lived in Michigan, I was a church planter there and I planted churches, and there was there was a specific church that was there, and it was very prominent in that area, and they taught that there was a difference between one sin and another. They taught that there was such a thing as mortal sin, and then they taught that there was such a thing as venial sin. Okay? So that they taught there was mortal sin, and then they taught that there was menial, uh venial sin. Now, venial sin uh was like stuff like lying. Like that can be forgiven. Venial sins can be forgiven. And uh they would teach that, and they would teach that over and over. But they said, but there's some mortal sins you just you don't you don't pass go, you don't get forgiven of those. And some of those sins were things like lying. Not lying, excuse me, murder. Uh uh and you can understand it. Lying was a venial sin, murder was a mortal sin. They always said sorcery was a mortal sin. They would say things like whoremongering is a mortal sin. So they separated sin. But I want to read something to you, and it's so important. If you hear nothing else today, you need to understand this because we live in a world that separates out sin when it comes to Jesus. We live in a world where it is very popular to believe in mortal sin and venial sin. But I want you to see what God's word says. Look and see what God's word says. Revelation 21, verse 8 says, but the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable and murderers, you're like, okay, I've got this so far. This is mortal sin, yes. And whoremongers and sorcerers, and somebody saying, Amen, those are mortal sins and all and idolaters, yeah, they're that's immortal sin. And then it says, and all liars, you're like, oh man, I just went from amen to omen. Do you read what the Bible says? It says, and the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the whoremongers, the sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars will have their part in the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Did you read that the way I just read that? If that's not enough for you, you can go on down to Revelation 22, verse 15. And it says, for without, that means outside of heaven. For without are dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves making lies. Now, let me just kind of take this thing home and help you to understand something. All sin is mortal. Every single sin is mortal. And that's one of the reasons why we have the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are written to us, not necessarily say, here's you a list, so then in turn you can look at this list and say, Oh yeah, I got that one, I got that one, I got that one. And then we get to verse 16 and says, uh-oh. Let's skip over that one. We think God raids on a curve. He doesn't. The Bible says, outside of this place, outside of glory, outside of his presence, are dogs, our whoremongers, are all these things. And we would say, okay, those are mortal sins. And then it says, and those who love making a lie, that's a venial sin. And you'll pause it and say, something's wrong with this theology that I've been taught in my world today. Listen, the truth of the word of God is all sins are mortal. And because they're mortal, you say, Well, what am I gonna do? If if I've lied, if I've lied, how am I gonna get to heaven if all liars face the lake of fire? What's my hope? I have good news for you today. The hope is in the one who is the truth, the way, the truth, the life. That same Jesus who loved you so much, who

Heaven Comes On Jesus’ Ticket

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knew your sins, while we try to separate them out. We've got to say God graves on a certain curve. No, that same Jesus became your substitute because you could not get yourself into a position where you had never lied. You could not get yourself into a position as if you had not ever sinned on your own. The only way that could happen is for Jesus to go because the wages of sin is death, included lying, and stretch out his arms on Calvary, my friend. So that in turn there he bled. He died for every single sin that you and I have ever committed. And that's the hope of the gospel. That's why it's good news. Listen, this commandment gives us bad news. It tells us, listen, here's the bad news. We are condemned, but in Christ we can be set free. That's the good news. And I don't know if in your life here right now trying to do this grating on the curve thing and saying, I'm not so bad. Yes, you are bad. I know you don't want to hear that. That doesn't go with what you, you know, that's not a participation trophy kind of thing. But let's get down to the truth. One day you and I will face God, and it's not gonna be what your mama said or your soccer coach said. What's gonna matter is what God said. And if God said all sin is mortal, then what happened was is Jesus Christ took that sin and placed it. God placed it on Jesus so that we could have a substitute. It's kind of like this. Years ago, there was a little boy. He went to the county fair, and his daddy went with him, you know, back when you had to have a ticket to get on the ride. And while that boy was going to the county fair with his daddy, his daddy was bought and purchased the tickets and handed to his son, and before long there were a bunch of other boys that were crowded around, and they had their hands out too. And the father said, Listen, why should I give you a ticket? And they said, Because we know your son. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you go to heaven on his ticket, not your own. My goodness, we need to hear that today. My goodness, that is a truth that Satan has tried to just kind of trying to bury underneath. He's like, just go ahead and think you can do good enough. The Bible says it's not by our own works lest any man should boast. When I stand before God, I won't say, God, I was a preacher. God, I preached your word, God, I did all this. You know what I'm gonna say? I came under the blood of Jesus Christ. And what he did for me was enough. He cleansed me, he covered me. And yes, who I am is not who I want to be now, but thank God in my own flesh, this flesh is going to go and be buried someday because the new man is coming out. And the Spirit of God, yes, he's creating in me a clean heart. Yes, he's moving me and you to be more like Christ. But thanks be to God, it's not that that gets us into heaven and gets us into a relationship with God. It's the blood of Jesus. That's the good news.

The Feather Pillow Lesson

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Years ago in the 16th century, there was a guy named Philip Neri. Philip Neri was at that time uh a part of a church where they had penance. And many of the people came to the church and they were wanting to confess their sins so that in turn they could get penance. And he became so disturbed by that. And what he did was is when they came, he finally one day just gave them a feather pillow. He said, Let's go up into the bell tower. And while they were standing there and saying, How can I get penance? How can I get forgiven? And one of those things was all the lies that they told. He said, Let's rip open the feather pillow. And there from the top of that bell tower, he said, just begin to just wave this pillow and let those feathers just fly. And they flew all in the wind all over town. He said, if you want to be forgiven, go find every one of those feathers and come and put them back in this bag, and you can be forgiven. And you know what the response was? They said, That's impossible. But I have good news for you. If you want to be forgiven, we have a Jesus who knows every one of our sins. And guess what he did on Calvary? He collected them all and he bore them on the cross.

The Crushing Math Of Daily Lies

SPEAKER_01 42:43

I'm told, listen, before I close, I am told that every human being lies about one to two times a day. Now, if that's true and you live to the age of 70, did you know if you just tell one lie a day until you're 70 years old, you would be, you would have 25,550 lies to be forgiven. If you told two until the day you're 70, you would have 51,000 lies. I did a little bit of study and I thought, what's the population of the world in one day? How much do we lie? 8.3 billion people. You can stop and you can say, okay, what is the chances? How how many lies would there be collected in a lifetime? And it goes into the trillions, like the trillions to the 16th power. It's insane. But here's the good news. On the cross. He took every lie. Yeah. All 51,500. Is that what it was? 51,500. He took them all. And they were placed on him. For the sins of the world. Not just the sins of lying, but the sins. All the sins that we've committed. And they placed him on him on the cross. And that, my friend, is how your sins were forgiven. That's how your sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. And he rose triumphally on the third day to prove that everything he promised is true. And he says, Come unto me. Come to me. All ye that are laden and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. You know what that means? It's not just talking about your weariness of living life, it's talking about the heavy burden of our sins. You don't have to carry them. Jesus already paid for them on the cross. And this morning, this morning, he's here with good news for you. Great news for you.

Prayer And Final Invitation

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Lord, today we thank you. That Jesus, that you are salvation. It's not in us, it's in you. It's not in our ability, it's in your ability. It's not in our trying, it's through the cross. Thank you for the Ten Commandments that brings us to the understanding that it is absolutely impossible for us to earn our place with you. Thank you, Lord, for the commandments that condemn us. Thank you for the commandments that remind us that we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and that the wages of that sin is death. But thank you, Jesus, that you took our death. Thank you, Lord. And you died for every one of them that whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. It doesn't say hopefully might be, will be saved. But the promise of God is that salvation has come to all who will believe and receive. And Lord, those this morning that need to receive you, open their heart. Help them to say and call upon your name, say, Jesus, come into my life. I need your forgiveness. I need your grave.

Stay Connected And Closing

SPEAKER_00 46:59

To stay connected, share this message, subscribe, or visit us online at Kinnasalt First.church. We'll see you next time. Keep building your life on truth.