This sermon emphasizes the importance of honesty and repentance, highlighting the consequences of habitual lying and the need for genuine confession and transformation. It addresses the impact of lying on relationships, spiritual vitality, and eternal consequences, urging individuals to seek God's forgiveness and cleansing in areas of deceit.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Acts 4.32. Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul. Neither did anyone say that any of his things he possessed was his own, but they all, but they had all things in common. Isn't that amazing? The multitude, those who believed, the believers were of one heart and one soul, and neither did anyone say that his things were his own possession. Now, this is a good reminder to remind you, I remind myself, that our possessions are really not our possessions. You know, we think this is mine, and really, we're just stewards. Your house, your children, your finances, if you look at it as like, Lord, you are the owner of this, how can I better steward this? It will change the way you spend money. It will change the way you store things, and now we've got too much storage in our homes. Now we've got garages with storage units. Back when my dad bought his first house, they didn't even have garages. You had a little garage outside. Now we've got three-car garages. We put more stuff, and then after that, we go and get a storage unit. And then we have storage and storage, and I know one of the concerns about when the churches first came together here was people would say, you know, what are they going to do with the building? And we just recognize this as stewards. We're the stewards for the next 20 years or whatever God does. I'm not retiring early, but whatever God wants to do, we are stewards of that. So that changes the way you view things. It changes. Now you've got to save, and you've got to use wisdom, but we're just a steward of what God has for us, and that's what the early church had that I think many of us are lacking. They realized that they didn't own anything. It wasn't their possessions. They were of one heart and one soul, and I find this interesting that unity is very common among people when they first believe. When a person believes in Jesus, they are united with all of, oh, you're a believer, me too, me too. And I remember back, it was 1999. I came back to the Lord, and that's what we say, you know, if you come back to the Lord, the prodigal son, and God radically changed my life, and I was so united, and then you start meeting people, you know, that have been a Christian for 20 years, you know, and you can't read that Bible. You know, that's John MacArthur's study Bible. He doesn't believe in the gifts. Oh, okay, disunity. And then, well, you can't read Jack Kafer because he does, and then people say, oh, you can't read that, and I'm not endorsing anybody. I'm just talking about, you know, how we like to. Now, there's nothing wrong with having sound doctrine and pointing out error and being united in the essentials of the faith, but we have to be careful when we use our certain beliefs, and now that's the gauge on which we rate everyone else. So I've noticed unity when people are young in the faith, and then that unity quickly turns to division as we get older and more mature and more knowledgeable, and some division needs to take place, of course, but be careful in this area of unity. I'm not endorsing those people I just said, right? I'm telling you, though, that we have to respect differences. I think it was Augustine, I didn't write it down, but to have unity in the essentials, and then love in all things, and the quote goes on to say other things, but we have to be united in the essentials. Unity is, and what unity involves is putting your own rights and opinions down when they need to be put down. We don't always have to get the last word in. We don't always have to be right about certain things. I mean, there's people in this room we could get in a long, heated debate on eschatology. That's the study of end times. You could get in a long debate about pneumatology, the work of the Holy Spirit. You could get in a debate about soteriology, about salvation, those who believe in Calvinism, those who believe in Arminianism, man's free will versus God's sovereignty. You can get in debates forever. Church government, the structure of church government, congregational rule, elder rule or pastor rule. Women in leadership, what role, what position? And the Bible does speak about these things, but a heart that's united wants unity, not fighting and arguing and bickering and complaining and causing contention. There is, though, a time to stand for what is right. There's a time to say, you know what, I just wrote an article, hopefully, or maybe it is in your bulletins, I think Susie made copies, five reasons why Christians are divided on gay marriage. And just a couple days ago, the news picked up, there's like 4,000 shares. And you'll be amazed that the emails I get are from Christians that are mad. Pastors that are mad, that have reverend in front of their name. Sir, you are deceived, is what they tell me. According to Jude, you are deceived. Really? I don't know. I mean, you might want to read the Bible, it doesn't change. And so those things, there are certain things that you can't, well, you're right, so let me just give you that one, and we'll give you that one, and we'll give you the atonement. You can't just keep, you know, you've got to stand for something. What's the old country song, or you'll fall for anything, right? So, but be careful, because I've seen in my own heart, I've seen this many times before, that that wonderful gift of unity can be shattered very easily. And you have to work at unity, because it does not come naturally. It comes supernaturally, by the work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit's never divided, remember that. 33, and with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. So unity equaled power. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked, for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and they distributed to each one as the need arose. So a need is different than a want. Here's what he's saying. Abundance, our abundance should take the place of the need or lack in the lives of others. So you look at your abundance, you look at what God has put on your heart, and you say, can I give that to those in need? Verse 36, you ready? And Joseph, who was also named Barabbas, or Barnabas, I'm sorry, I got the wrong guy in my mind. Barnabas, by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus. Having land, he sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. That's the right way to do it. They sold something, they had this land, we don't know much about it other than they were able to sell it. They brought all the proceeds to the church. Now that's the right way because the heart was right. Now let's look at the wrong way to do this. Acts 5, but a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it still not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart, you have not lied to men but to God? So, in a nutshell, a piece of property across the street, sells for $100,000. They say, hey, I just sold a property across the street, I want the church to have it all. Bless you, brother, here's $50,000. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What happened? You could just say, I sold it for $100,000, here's $50,000, I'd like to give the church, and that's fine. Or give the church 10 or give a ministry something, it doesn't matter as long as you're honest about it. What has God put in my heart, here's what I've done. But they said, oh, we sold it for such and such, but they really didn't. They kept all the extra proceeds from that sale. So, a couple questions. Why do we lie? Now, everybody in this room better be convicted on this sermon, I'll tell you what. Why do we lie? We lie because of fear. We lie because we want to get out of trouble. Right, is that one reason? Just yesterday I saw my phone had a big crack in the corner. Like, how did that happen? I didn't do that. So I went and started asking my kids, right? And finally when I narrowed down who did it, I went to her. She's not here right now, she's next door. But I said, you know what, if you tell me the truth, you're not in trouble. What happened here? She goes, hmm. I dropped it. You know, I dropped it. And I wanted to give her the opportunity to say, listen, you're not always going to be in trouble. It's not a good thing. You tell the truth, here's what happened, Daddy's not upset, you know, I'm glad you told the truth. But why was she probably going to lie if I didn't set it up that way? To get out of trouble. And that doesn't change from six years old to 16 to 26 to 36. Husbands, wives, where'd you go, I just ran a few errands. I just ran a few errands, that's all I did. Hmm. Our credit card statement says Walmart. Well, $50 at Walmart and $60 at Sports Chalet, and we don't want to get in trouble. Right, we just run errands, covers everything. You're on a fast, I ran errands. Why is In-N-Out Burger and Coalstone receipts in your car? But that's, we want to get, this is not a funny sermon, this is online. It's serious, and it is serious stuff. But think about that. But I want to challenge us this morning. I want to challenge us because these little things turn into big things. This little lie will become a bigger lie, and will become a bigger lie, and become a bigger lie. We're afraid to get out of trouble, a poor self-image. People do lie because they have a poor self-image. That's why you often hear name-dropping. You know, anybody says, name, oh, I would name-drop. They drop this name because they have a poor self-image, and they want you to think more highly of them. To get our point across, don't we lie to get our point across? This one cracks me up because we upset a few people when we stopped Saturday night service. And somebody said, you know, people are upset, and this, we don't know what's going on. There's a lot of people who feel this way. So I said, okay, I'd like to meet these lot of people. Let's sit down. I'd love to hear what's on their heart. Never, nothing else happened from that. Where are these lot of people? And that happens a lot. Well, now, there's a lot of people who feel that way. No, it's just you and the person you gossip with, often. And we throw that in there. There's a lot of people that feel this way. That's lying. If it's not, that's altering the truth to get a point across. I've been guilty of that myself. You want to bump it up a little bit? Yo, there's a lot of people here who don't like this. No, there's just me and my wife, and maybe somebody else. And you bump that up, and that's not good. That's called lying. It's deceptive. And many people do that. Also selfish. We lie because we're selfish. And we want our way. We don't want to be truthful in many areas. But this person actually lied to appear spiritual, in my opinion. He was saying, here, you go, here's $100,000, or here's $50,000. That's what we sold the land for. Really, they sold it for $100,000. So he wanted to appear spiritual. Look at what we sold. We're giving you everything. Aren't we so spiritual? And God obviously does not like that. John Piper said, sin, by definition in the Bible, is not wronging another person. It is assaulting the glory of God, rebelling against God. The world doesn't understand how serious hell is because they don't understand how serious sin is. And sin is actually lying to God. We're lying to God. Why have you lied against the Holy Spirit? Why have you lied and conceived this thing? And it's interesting. Jesus is the truth. We are voices of truth. We live by the truth. The truth sets us free, so the truth is a big deal. This is a huge topic. This is a huge topic in the Christian community because we'll tweak things, we'll say things, we'll have the self-image, we'll alter the truth, and we walk around and we're actually lying. And I believe God wants to deal in many of our hearts this morning to get this little root of lying, it takes on a life of its own. Because if you lie about the little things, then you'll lie about something else. You never get caught. It's something else. And we turn in, we become liars. And not necessarily all the time, but we have a tendency to not tell the truth, and God is not happy with that. What about when David sinned with Bathsheba? He said against you and you only have I sinned. Wait a minute, you just got her husband killed, David. You just have Uriah killed. You just committed adultery. What are you talking about? Against you and you only have I sinned. Well, here's a clarification. He wronged others. He did wrong them, but he rebelled against God. God said, don't do this, he did it. So yes, he wronged those people, that was wrong. But he against you and you only have I sinned. Because all sin, remember this, all sin starts by rebelling against God. I first sinned against God before I sinned against others. Because when I'm sinning, in that process, I'm actually rebelling against God, and it's an affront to him. Why has Satan filled your heart? Why has Satan filled your heart? And we need to talk about this for a minute, because I taught James on Wednesday, if you were here, you remember this. But the devil doesn't do, the devil doesn't make us do anything. The devil doesn't make you do anything. You can't blame the devil. I hope that burst the bubble for some people this morning. You can't say there's a deceiving spirit, there's a lying spirit, there's a spirit of chocolate in my house, there's a spirit of all the, and we just cave in. Now the enemy will, the Bible talks about deceiving spirits. The Bible talks about a lying spirit was sent out. And there are different ways that the enemy will come in, but he doesn't make you do anything. He simply presents the bait. Just like a trout, when they see that little, look at that little little fish, it's broken, it's hurt, I'm gonna go eat it. And then they eat that lure, what happens? Now they're the trout, now they're the bait, now they're the food. That's the enemy does, he just threw, so he probably threw that idea in there. I mean, that's a good idea for our flesh, isn't it? Hmm, yeah, I'll tell the church this, and I'll just, I'll keep the rest and I'll appear spiritual, but I'll still have money. So he filled his mind with that, but he had the choice not to act upon it. And resist, lie against the Holy Spirit and fulfill that, and isn't that true in all areas of life? It's a daily struggle with the flesh. I mean, at some point, I wish that that flesh would just die. And just be, just leave me alone, it's not gonna happen on this side of heaven. It's so, as a word of encouragement, just because there's that tension or that temptation, doesn't make it wrong or evil. Like, you get these thoughts, you're like, why did I get those thoughts? I'm such a bad person. No, just don't act upon them. The enemy could plant seeds in your mind and thoughts. And I'll tell you, just a struggle I had this week, it's not a real big one, but hopefully it'll help some people. Many of you, some of you, I think I mentioned it in one of the sermons, that our neighbor likes to walk his dog about six feet past my property line, and then you know what takes place when people walk dogs. And they just, they leave it there for a week or two, and it builds up, right? So the flesh is like, I'm knocking on that door. I'm not, and the Holy Spirit's like, no, you're gonna get a shovel and a trash can and be quiet. No, I'm knocking on that door. This is rude. What do they think? No, you're gonna pick up a shovel, clean it up, and for two days, for two days, I didn't do anything. I just pulled up, saw it. Man, this is a struggle. Because the flesh, right? I am human too. The flesh wanna knock on it. Who do you think you are? Six feet away from where my kids are and play. You know, what are you doing? But I had to just say, okay, I'm just gonna grab a shovel and trash can and just do it. And then yesterday, I saw him walking out there, he saw it was clean, and he head over across the street with his dog. So I'm like, okay, well, I'll take that for now. But it's a struggle. It's a daily struggle. I like to fast before I preach. I like to fast right now. I'm fasting. I don't eat just juice. And wouldn't you know it, I wanna stop by McDonald's on my way here. Everything was talking, and I usually don't stop there, but get a coffee, get a pastry. Oh, that would sound so good. The flesh is No, you're not going. Yes, I am. No, you're not. And who are you going? So that's what the devil does. So the devil doesn't make you do anything. Now, if you give in to something, and you're in the world, and loving the things of the world, that influence will be much stronger than if you're in the Word of God and serving God and fasting and worshiping and reading His Word. Then that desire is not as strong because the enemy doesn't have as much of a foothold to pull you back. So that's how the devil works. He puts in thoughts into your head about certain things. Well, how do I know, Shane? You compare it with the Word of God. You compare it with the Word of God. What does this say? Well, I don't know what this says. Well, then you better get into this because if you're not in the Word, the Word won't be in you. That's how it works. We don't just think, that's a pretty good book we should get to from time to time. No, it's a living and air-inspired Word of God that's given to guide us and lead us. And the more you have of that in you, the more you know when to make a right decision or a wrong one. So just keep that in mind. Blameshifting is very common when it comes to lying. People will blame shift. If they're lying and they're caught in a lie, how do they usually get out of that lie? You know what, you're right. Let me repent right now. No, they don't say that. They build a different lie and a different scenario and a different this and a different that. They blame shift or they'll blame the enemy. Shane, there's a lying spirit that will not let me go. I just have to lie. Or it's that person, the devil made me get drunk. No, you planned it when you left for Las Vegas. It's a four-hour drive. You've got four hours to think about it. He didn't make you do anything. You got in the car, you turned the key, and you drove. Now what are we going to hear? Now that marijuana is legal. The devil made me get high. No, it's you made that choice. So be careful because a lot of times we want to blame shift or blame our spouse or blame our children. I've had a hard week. And that's one way the enemy will work. I came across a story talking about the pull of the flesh and wanting to make wise decisions. And it's a story of a little boy named Alexander. He was trying to save pennies so he could buy a baseball bat. And he was having a very hard struggle. He said to God, he was praying, he said, and his mom overheard him praying to God fervently. He said, Oh Lord, please help me save my money for a baseball bat. Please God, help me. Can you hear a little boy saying that? I can. Lord, help me. Help me save my money for this baseball bat. And God, please don't let the ice cream man come down my street anymore. That's how it works, isn't it? He's never going to win that battle unless he realizes, oh, I'm supposed to tell that ice cream man. No, I'm supposed to make that decision. So verse five, I'm sorry, chapter five, we're going to a new chapter now. Then Ananias, hearing these words, what words did he hear? He heard why has Satan filled your heart? You're lying. You're lying to us about this money. So hearing these words, he fell down and breathed his last breath. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. And the young men arose and wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him. No wasting time there. Now it was about three hours later when his wife came in, not knowing what had happened, but she knew about the little conspiracy. She was also going to say, yeah, we sold it for such and such, but really they didn't. They were keeping the money. So she knew all about this, but she didn't know that he died. And Peter answered her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. She said yes, for so much. Then Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? And I don't know why, but I made a note real early this morning on this, and it really jumped out that a lot of times spouses will enable a liar. Spouses will conspire. I know they've got this issue, but they're enabling. They're doing it together, because if one spouse says, this is not right. I can't put up with this anymore. You're hurting my family. I need to take a stand. You can stop that enabling. Many times spouses who continue to lie, it's because they are being enabled. The spouse, even though they don't like it, will kind of support it, kind of back them, kind of, you know, well, you know what I'm saying, right? I mean, we don't want to put our spouse down in front of others. We've learned that many times before looking through Scripture. We don't want to constantly, you know, badge or anything, but at some point, when you're at home, alone, you've got to say, this is enough. Enough is enough. I cannot keep conspiring with you on this. I know your heart's not right in these areas. So they agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord, and he said, look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out as well. Then immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in and found her dead and carried her out, buried her by her husband. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. Now, that's where the question came in at the beginning of the sermon. Why did God do this? Does that happen today? I don't know how many people would be sitting here this morning. I mean, think about it. Would we, oh no, I never lie, Doug. How many people would really be here? Would this place be empty? What happened? Well, a couple things I want to look at. If you look at from, if you go back from the flood to the children of Israel in the promised land, to let's say King Herod, to Ananias, there's a lot of times that God did smoke people, like smoke, killed. He would remove them from office quickly. He would kill entire armies. He flooded the earth. So there are times that you see God intervenes and does things like this. Now, we have to remember that His justice cannot sleep forever. His justice cannot sleep forever. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said I tremble for my country when I realize that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever. They even realized that a couple hundred years ago, even today, even the early church. So, in my opinion, again, commentaries are divided. I'll go through a lot of different issues, but I have a feeling that this is an area that God had convicted them in before. I don't think they were these righteous, holy, good people in the church and that, wow, they just blew it one day and just kind of told a little fib so they keep more money. I think there is a pattern there, a pattern of lying, a pattern of deception, and I think God said enough is enough. I'm removing this, especially the early church. I'm removing that for the church. Some people say, which I agree with too, is God was setting the example. He was building the foundation of the church. Nope, that's not going to happen. Great fear goes upon the whole church. You better live holy. You better walk righteously. You better not build the church on these types of foundations. So that could be one area as well. But the practical application for us is don't tempt or test God. Don't tempt or test God. If we are continuing to lie, it's by God's sheer grace and mercy that he allows us to keep breathing or to keep being involved in ministry or to keep doing things. It's by sheer grace and mercy. We can't keep testing that and tempting God in that area. I remember 1911 hearing a quote. I found it again in 1911. This was said in 1911. Not even God himself could sink the ship. You know what they were talking about? An employee for the Titanic said that, right? The morning of its launch. Not even God can sink this ship. Well, hmm. We can look back now and know what happened, and that's what we don't want to do. So the practical application in my opinion would be that we don't want to tempt God in this area. If we know that lying is a problem, if we know we are lying, we're using maybe the church for certain things. We're using people for certain things. We're being conniving and being sneaky, and we're lying. That needs to end. We can't keep allowing this to be in the church or in our families. We have to say, God, I want help in this area, but you have to confess it. And this is one of the hardest sins, because liars, what do they do? They lie. So how do you get a liar who lies to confess and repent when their whole pattern is lying? It's very difficult. God has to just open their eyes. Open their eyes. Yesterday when I was talking to Randy, we were talking to these atheists. I'm like praying, Lord, you've got to open these eyes. This makes no sense. I took a little Tabasco thing and said, now obviously a person made this, right? Oh, of course. Well, then how much more of the human body? How much more of the universe and the oxygen, the hydrogen, all these elements that sustain life? Well, if you give it 4.5 billion years, that could happen. You can't just say, because they say 12 billion or 5 billion, you can't just say, well, if you give it enough time, no, it won't. If you leave that rock out there, it's not going to be an elephant in 20 years or 5,000 years. It's not. But there's blindness there. I'm listening. How could anybody believe this? Oh, my Lord. But there's blindness. There's blindness. They don't want there to be a God, many times. If there's a God, then there's moral accountability. Then I've been wrong all these years? And that's what the issue, there's spiritual blindness. So, if you know, that's what I want to do at the end of the service also, is pray for those we know who struggle in this area, whether it's a spouse, whether it's kids, whether it's ourselves. We need to pray in this area that spiritual blindness is removed. Because you're not going to just talk someone into this. God has got to move on their behalf and show them. That's one of the points of preaching, looking to God's Word. Psalm 32, David, he was keeping silent about his sin. Do you know David kept silent for about a year? On this massive sin of killing another man and taking his wife. And Psalm 32 says, When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groanings all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Think about that. Where are some of you, can you relate to this spiritually? Your bones even hurt. Day and night, God's hand is heavy upon you. Your vitality has turned into a drought of summer. You're just dead spiritually. You're moody. You're upset. You're just angry. What's going on? It's because when we're caught in this sin and we allow it to continue and fester and build, it will destroy us spiritually. We'll have this huge weight and we'll just be grumpy and moody because we're not supposed to carry this weight. We're supposed to repent and confess and give it to Christ to carry it. My yoke is easy. He says, Take it upon you. Confess your sins. I will carry that load for you. But when David finally confessed, he acknowledged. It says, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden. I have said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. You know, ever since we started this sermon, I kept wanting to read these excerpts. I was holding them to the end. I just want to read them now. I think this might open the eyes for some people. I just pulled this off of online secular sites about compulsive lying. This person, Lexus Clark, wrote, Though compulsive liars often take extreme care to keep others under the spell of their deception, once in a while the web of lies unravels and the liar is seen as without any of his dishonest walls. When this occurs, the liar works quickly and frantically to rebuild those walls, constructing more lies in order to rebuild himself into what he was previously seen as. This often involves elaborate stories of being falsely accused, constructing lie after lie with the intention of defending his or her supposed innocence. If this method, as well as any other attempts, fail, then the compulsive liar is forced to tell the truth, but he or she will often do it with a great display of anxiety or nervousness or they're uncomfortable. They'll finally admit it, but there's just something about that. You agitated that. Truth About Deception wrote this, I have been married to a compulsive liar for more than 25 years. The lies range from simple ones that had no apparent point to very complex deceptions made to achieve a goal. When confronted, she would deny lying, misdirect the conversation and verbally attack me, and try every approach imaginable to avoid the truth. If pursued long enough, she may tell the truth, but with a great deal of resentment. Anyone who has been shocked or devastated by the actions of a liar knows the shame that follows. You are outraged, but deep inside you feel stupid and naive for having misjudged someone's character. It can be deceptive and painful and downright confusing. That's what lying does to families. The word of God is saying stop it. Stop it. As believers, you have the ability to say, God, I need to work in this area. And if the truth be told, I would say it's the majority of this room. No, Shane, well, did you know backbiting is lying? Slander, gossip, those are all forms of lying. Embellishing, creating a reality that's not there. That's all lying. That's not being honest. That's being dishonest. And I believe this is a huge area that God is wanting to work in our lives and in the church. So back to this question of why did God kill these people? Other than what I just said, another answer is sovereignty. Sovereignty plays a role in this. We don't know why. We just know that God had had enough. I believe that He warned them time again, the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They were believers. Now, in our own lives, we may not die when we do this, but we lose spiritual power. We lose insight and we lose wisdom. Our walk with the Lord is severely hindered when we do this. Another reason is possibly for fear purposes. Twice it says, so great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. See, there's nothing wrong when a church from time to time fears something. We should fear Almighty God. We should fear His power, His presence. We should fear things. We should fear having sin exposed so we repent. That's one of the processes and that's one of the reasons for Matthew 18. If you look at Matthew 18 on church discipline, first you go to somebody and you discuss why they're caught in a sin. They don't agree. They don't understand. You bring a couple people, a couple witnesses, maybe some elders. You've got to go back to your wife. Stop living with your girlfriend. This is wrong. We cannot allow this. Please, we're pleading with you. We're pleading with you. Do not allow this to continue. And if he just mocks it and mocks it and mocks it, then you bring it to the church. And you say, listen, we love this person enough to, we have to disfellowship. We have to cut ties because they are tainting. They are affecting. They are that leaven of bread. We love them enough to pray for restoration. And you expose the sin and people are scared. People are scared. I remember, I wonder if we were able to send out a massive text saying, you've been found out. You better get home and hide it. How many people would run for cover? Because that's what a lot of times God will use fear to redirect people. You see Christian leaders falling on the news. Fear. Men, get your house in order. You see another person fall. Women, get your house in order too. Coming underneath your husband's leadership and praying for your kids. And fear can be a great motivator. I fear crossing that line when somebody's driving 65 miles an hour. And I pull up to people even on the freeway. It's amazing. They're driving with their knees. Shane, why are they doing that? And you fear those kind of people. You fear. What? Is that what happens? I'm the only one that sees that? No. People are texting every stoplight. You'll watch now. It's green. The cars are still staying there. What are they doing? Oh, shoot. It's a green light. And they'll go. And you'll see these things. And so you hear in texting, actually, they're coming out with more ads now that shows how dangerous that is. So fear. God will use fear to redirect and to refocus us. So this could have been what he was doing. So here's the exposure. Again, that should prompt us to repentance. If you have a problem in this area, like David, don't keep silent. Don't keep hiding from God. It's heavy upon you. God is using this type of sermon to bring conviction. You're spiritually dried up. All you have to do, like David said, acknowledge my sin and my iniquity. I have not hidden them. God, I'm bringing them to you. This should cause our prayer room to be full next door. This should cause our prayer room to be full next door after the service. I'm coming to you, God. I need help in this area. I'm praying for somebody. I'm praying for my spouse. I'm praying for my kids. I'm praying for somebody to see the light because they don't see the light very easily. While we're talking about that, if you go next door and everybody's tied up praying with somebody, did you know you can grab the person next to you and pray with them? It doesn't say, when Pastor Shane is with you and two or more are together, there I am. Or an elder. You should go to the elders and have them pray with you for healing and anointing and different things. But you can just grab somebody and let me pray for you. If you've been a Christian and you want to pray with somebody, you can do that. You don't have to wait for somebody necessarily. You can pray with them and there's power in that because there's fellowship. There's coming together. There's unity. And here's probably where I guess my heart is most broken about this topic is Revelation 21.8. If you believe the Bible, then you believe this. The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexual, immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters. People are saying, oh, praise God, that's not me. But then it says, all liars will go into the fiery lake burning with sulfur. This is the second death. That's serious. You can hear a pin drop. Yeah, you should hear a pin drop because this is very serious. Unbelieving, idolaters, fornicators, all these things, a liar will be cast into the fiery lake of hell and be separated from God. This is the second death. What's the first death? The first death is when you take your last breath and the second death is when you go before God and there's judgment and you're cast away into hell because of lying. Now people say, oh, wow, how does this work? Because I do lie and I, Shane, what's going to happen? This is actually not as hard as you think. Lying in this sense is a habitual pattern of lying. You know it. It's who you are. You've decided that's your MO. That's how you're going to operate. You don't care what God's word says and you're going to continue to be a liar. It's not that liars actually go into hell or adulterers or fornicators or all these other things. It's their lifestyle shows that they don't have a relationship with God. That's why there's a whole list of things. Whole list of things. From homosexuality to lying to adultery to stealing. All these things. If this is a habitual pattern and you say, I don't care what God's word says about it. It doesn't really matter to me. This is who I am. This is who he's made me to be. Whether you're a liar, whether you covet, whether you're in the black magic or the occult or whether you cheat and you, no matter what it is, you will be cast away from God because you don't have a relationship with him. But the person, there are Christians who struggle with lying. They struggle with it. God help me. It reminds me of an analogy I think I gave here when I first started speaking of the pig and the lamb. The mud represents sin. The pig goes and wallows in the mud and enjoys it and leads other people in. But the lamb hates its miserable condition when it's caught in the mud and it desperately wants out. So on one hand, I want to severely warn those who don't truly know God. And they are a lying. They don't drink. They don't do this. But they are a liar. They've never repented. They don't have genuine faith. It's crystal clear that you are not on God's side. But I also want to encourage those who struggle with lying. It's no different than struggling with any other sin. That disposition to sin. You're a liar. Another person is adulterer. Another person is hooked on porn. Another person can't stop drinking if their life depends on it. Another person is about ready to order some more Oxycontin and be hooked for the next two months. The struggles are struggles are struggles. But what do you do? You don't say, oh, well, that's the way. No, you say, that's not right. I'm taking that to the cross this morning. Like David, I'm crying out. I acknowledge my sin to you and I acknowledge my iniquity. I've been hiding them from you. God, I give you this area of my life. Please cleanse me. Let me confess it. Let me bring it to the surface because sin can't keep growing when it's confessed. Trust me. Sin loves that little darkness. Just grows in that darkness. But when you come, like to the prayer room, when you come, you stay here during worship and you tell, Lord, I need help in this area. And this is an area I think most people need help in. Embellishing. Gossiping. Backbiting. Hurting. Saying, oh, everybody feels this way. Well, no, they don't. And we built this image of lying. And a lot of churches don't want to address it. You think a lot of churches are going to read that verse tomorrow? Or today? I used to think I'm Saturday night. But they're going to read that verse tomorrow that liars will be cast into hell if a person is a liar. And all they do is lie and lie and lie. And they don't want to repent. That's a scary spot to live. See, me personally, I don't want to live my life with the question mark there. Oh my gosh, I don't know. Am I saved? Am I not saved? You know. You know if you've genuinely repented of your sin. So if this is your, this is a mark. If lying is a mark of your life, I just ask you to confess this morning and say, Lord, this is an area I have to work in. I need to work in.