This sermon emphasizes the importance of loving and seeking the truth, both in God's Word and in our personal lives. It warns against self-deception, hypocrisy, and the danger of not loving the truth, which can lead to God allowing deception. The speaker challenges listeners to be honest with themselves, repent of pretense, and seek genuine transformation by aligning their lives with the truth found in Christ and Scripture.

They all came through the Red Sea, a picture of water baptism. They were baptized in the cloud, a picture of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, verse 2. They ate the same spiritual food, that means the word of God, and they drank the spiritual drink, a picture of being born again through the Holy Spirit. But, verse 5, he says, I don't want you to be ignorant of this fact. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased. So what's the application to us? You can be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, you can be baptized in water, baptized in the Holy Spirit, you may be reading the word of God every day, and you may have the Spirit dwelling in you, but God may not be pleased with you. Fully. And if, like many of us say, we want to follow Jesus, most, almost every Christian would say, I want to follow Jesus, I want to be like him. Do you know what God said about Jesus at the river Jordan? This is my son in whom I am well pleased. It's the exact opposite of this. It's the same word. He was not well pleased with a whole lot of people, but he was well pleased with Jesus. So it's good to look at these two, the contrast. What did those Israelites experience in the wilderness, with whom God was not well pleased? For 40 years, they experienced the greatest miracles that any group of people have ever experienced in the history of man. We never hear of any time where two million people received food dropping from heaven every day for 40 years. I mean, if you experienced that once in your life, you'd be talking about it for the rest of your life. These guys were experiencing it all the time. It was just normal. Food from heaven, they just go out next morning and say, yes, it's coming. They experienced water coming out of a dry rock for 40 years, water to satisfy the thirst of two million people. And when they were hungry for meat, millions of birds would drop dead in front of them. When they were bitten by snakes, they were supernaturally healed. It says in the Psalms, their clothes never wore out for 40 years. Their slippers, their sandals never wore out for 40 years. Today, a lot of Christians think that if they experience one miracle, boy, God must be really happy with them. These guys experienced thousands of miracles for 40 years, and it says God was not well pleased with them. Now contrast that with Jesus. At the waters of baptism, the river Jordan, the Father said from heaven, this is my Son in whom I am well pleased. He was 30 years old then. How many miracles had he done or experienced till then? Zero. How many sermons had he preached? Zero. How many demons had he cast out by then? Zero. So who is God well pleased with? People who do miracles, experience miracles, or cast out demons, or preach great sermons? These things are written for our instruction. Is it possible that you have not seen what God wants you to focus in, in this earthly life? It's not primarily ministry. Nobody worked as hard as Jesus or the Apostle Paul, but ministry was not the big thing for them. It was a life that they lived before the Father that was more important than anything else, and it was from that life that flowed a ministry. Jesus lived a holy life to please the Father for 33 1⁄2 years, and out of all those 33 1⁄2 years, he had a ministry only for 3 1⁄2 years. Ten percent. What would you think of a man who spent only 10 percent of his life in ministry, and the 90 percent of his life he just lived a holy life? You wouldn't think he had accomplished much, right? Our whole understanding of spiritual values is so perverted, because, I'll tell you why, because we don't read the Bible. We say, there is only one book that God has given to man, but we spend more time with television and the newspaper and other novels and books than with the one book we say God has given to man. And that's why we are ignorant, and that's why I keep saying, if you've got a Bible in your language, and you don't read it carefully, then you deserve to be deceived. You deserve to go completely astray, and spend your life missing out on God's perfect plan for your life. And so, when we speak about truth, the truth will set you free. Jesus once made a statement, well, two statements, let me just read them to you. John 17, He said in verse 17 of John chapter 17 and verse 17, Praying to the Father, His prayer for His disciples was this, Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. So God's word is the truth. And the only way we can be sanctified, and sanctified means increasingly set apart from sin, and the world, and from all the poison the devil has put in us, through the nature of Adam that we have inherited, which we call the flesh. That is sanctification. It's not an instantaneous thing, it's a progressive thing. And temptation has got a big part to play in that process. Sanctify them, Father, through Thy truth. Thy word is truth. I will never be sanctified, if I don't give the place in my heart for God's word, that He wants me to have, because that is the truth. We have so many ideas in our own head, which we think are right, but we could be completely wrong. I mean, even in the physical realm, you know how, for thousands of years man believed that the sun goes around the earth, and it looks like that every day, till one man, five, six hundred years ago, had the boldness to challenge that, and consider the possibility that what his father believed was wrong, and what all his ancestors believed was wrong, and what everybody else in the world believed was wrong, and he discovered they were wrong. He was right. And so many calculations in science were wrong, because they got their foundations wrong. They thought the sun was going around the earth. It wasn't. It was the other way around. The earth was rotating on its axis. It's like that. There are so many things which we think are right, but we are wrong. God's word is the truth. And if I accept that, there is hope for me. The second statement Jesus made was John 14. You know these statements. John 14, verse 6, where he said, I am the truth. So we have two statements. God's word is the truth, and Jesus said, I am the truth. That means that life that he lived on earth, the person that he was, there is where truth is. And remember what I said in the beginning. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. Just like no one could experience grace in Old Testament times, not even John the Baptist, none of the great prophets, we can have a life of overcoming sin, which the greatest prophets in the Old Testament could not have. Truth, in this New Testament sense, means not just factual truth, but reality. The opposite of truth is a lie. And I want to show you a verse to illustrate that. In Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5, we read of the first sin that was judged. In the early church. And it was not adultery. It was not murder. It was not stealing. It was not the type of sins that we normally would discipline people in the church for. The first person who was severely disciplined, disciplined with death, in the early church, his sin was hypocrisy. And that hypocrisy was called a lie by Peter. Acts chapter 5, we read about Ananias and Sapphira, how they... So, you know, this was a time when we read that everybody was selling their houses, Acts 4, 34, and bringing the money, laying it at the apostles' feet, so that they could share with other believers who were in need around them. Now, God never commanded this, and He hasn't asked anybody to do it today. He never asked anybody to do it at any time. But giving is voluntary, and where people felt like giving, they did it, and there were needy people there, and they said, OK, I've got a house, I can sell it and give it to these needy people. Now, so, when all this was happening, when everybody around you is... Imagine, in your local church, if everybody around you is selling their houses to show their zeal for God, you don't want to feel left out, you don't want everybody to think that you're not so wholehearted. We all like to give others the impression that I'm just as wholehearted as everybody else. I mean, don't you find that desire in your heart? Particularly if everybody in your church is very zealous about something, you'd like to. Even if you're not so zealous, you'd like everybody to at least have the impression that you are. If everybody around you is pursuing holiness and you're really not doing it, you still would like everybody to think that you are. That's such a common trait among Christians. Well, that's exactly how Ananias was and his wife. So they said, hey, we'll look left out out of this, they'll think we're backsliders, that we don't sell our property. So they decided to sell their property and they only kept back some of the price, we read in Acts 5.2. Imagine if they sold their property for $100,000 and they kept back $50,000. And they brought $50,000 to the church to give to God. What would you call a person today who sold his property for $100,000 and gave $50,000 to God? Boy, he'd be considered a wholehearted Christian. But not in the days when people were giving everything. And he never said anything. He just came in the line that was there, people coming and laying their money at the apostles' feet. They were walking up, laying the money and walking out. Putting the money there and walking out. Ananias, he didn't open his mouth. He just came, put his money there and as he was walking out, Peter said, come back. Those apostles had discernment. You couldn't fool them. And look what Peter says to Ananias in Acts 5.3. Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Ananias could say, I didn't even open my mouth. What do you mean I told a lie? I didn't say a word. I just came and left as I went. What is a lie? This is the first time that the word lie comes in the Acts of the Apostles. The first time you read of lying in the early church. And if you want to understand truth, the truth that will set you free, you have to understand the opposite of it, this lie. To lie, you can lie without opening your mouth. That's what I learned here. To lie is to give an impression to others about my wholeheartedness, which is not true. To give people an impression that I'm more passionate about holiness than I really am in secret. That I'm more passionate about evangelism than I really am. That I'm more passionate about obeying God than I really am. That I'm passionate about building my local church than I really am. That's a lie. And if we don't cleanse ourselves from that, we're liars. Somebody asked me once, why don't we have this type of thing happening today, Ananias is falling dead. I said, there'll be hardly anybody left in the church if it happens today. Because there's so much of hypocrisy, so much of lying. It's not adultery that's the big sin in the church. It doesn't matter if we don't have so many miracles. I told you in the beginning that people who experience miracles every day for 40 years, God was not well pleased with them. But here was a man who never did one miracle and God was well pleased with him, Jesus. What did he have? Complete freedom from lying. He said, I am the truth. That type of life where there's zero hypocrisy, zero pretense, zero trying to impress men, was not possible under the old covenant. And if you want to see how much of it there is in us, we have to be very honest. Truth, as I said, is found in God's word and in Jesus Christ. So if you want to understand truth, you must know God's word well and know the earthly life of Jesus clearly. If you concentrate on these things, you'll understand the truth and it will really liberate you. It will liberate you from 101 things that you are probably a slave to, which you don't even realize. Truth as it's found in God's word and as I see it, I must be honest enough to face it. That is the truth that can set me free from pretense. Let me give you one example of how we can be in bondage without knowing it. See, everything I say is from my own experience. I've gone through failure, mistakes, defeat, and discovered the hard way how to come into a life of overcoming as God wants. Whenever we, those of you who, if you've ever prayed in public, you know, say you're in a gathering, it could be a small group of five people or a large church, and you pray in public, as we often do, have you ever examined yourself thereafter, after you've gone home, Lord, how much of that prayer was directed to you? And how much of that prayer was just to impress the people who were in that gathering? Have you ever asked yourself? I used to ask myself, and I discovered that almost zero was to God. I was more conscious of all the people around me, and I was praying, basically saying things that were all correct language and the right requests and all, but it was not directed to God. I was far more conscious of the people who were listening to me than God Almighty. But I was saying, Oh God. And I'd say, Lord, I'm sorry. I'd repent. I'd repent of my prayer. Have you ever repented of your prayer, that you prayed in public? Lord, I'm sorry, not one bit of that prayer was directed to you. I was just more conscious of the people around me the whole time. The thing is, a lot of people don't even realize that's a sin. And so I would repent, and then I would pray again some other time in some public meeting. Again, I'd go back and I'd repent and say, Lord, I still didn't make it. I got zero. I wasn't even bothered whether the prayer was answered. It was just a nice, pious thing to do, you know, just like when we start a meeting or... I mean, what's the right pious thing to do when we start a meeting? The right religious thing is to pray, right? It'd be terrible if you had a meeting which you didn't open with prayer. It's just a formality. I mean, we don't even expect God to do anything about it, whether it be prayer or not. We're not dependent on Him. That prayer is not an expression of helpless dependence, Oh God, please help us, otherwise we're not going to go through this meeting with your power. No, it's a formality. It's downright hypocrisy. And so what happened? Over a period of time, I'd keep on confessing, confessing, confessing. And gradually, I became more and more free. More and more free from being conscious of people when I prayed. My goal was to come to that place where whether I was praying with a thousand people there or one person there, I would be praying to God. What I'm asking is, do you have that passion to be completely free from lying? Now, you wouldn't call that lying, right? But that's what Peter called Ananias' pretense. What did Ananias want to do? Pretend that he was wholehearted. Just like we passionately pray, so that people will see that we're wholehearted. Are you trying to impress God or men? We may not think that's a serious thing. It's worse than cancer, I'll tell you that. Believe it or not. If there's a lack of progress in your Christian life, if you're not getting close to God, if you don't find supernatural power in your life to fill your heart with joy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the reason could be here. If you're finding problems in your family, in your church, that you're not able to solve, the problem could be here. There's lying. The complete opposite of Christ who said, I'm the truth. And God doesn't force us. He doesn't force us to give up any sin. He lets, you know, for example, if a believer is driving his car to commit adultery with somebody, he's not going to get a flat tire. Why is that? Why doesn't God stop him? God's given man complete freedom. He's given a believer complete freedom. You want to go and commit adultery? Go right ahead. You want to be a hypocrite in the church to get some honor for yourself? Go right ahead. I'm not going to stop you. The Holy Spirit will convict us if we are eager, if we've got a passionate desire to be completely truthful. We all think we're pretty honest. I don't think anybody would sit here and think I'm a bit of a dishonest person. But if you ask the Holy Spirit to show you, you'll discover what a lot of dishonesty there is, which the world doesn't consider dishonesty. I mean, the world standard of dishonesty is so low that we're all pretty honest people. But when Jesus says, I'm the truth, then you realize there's a lot of dishonesty in all of us. Lying. In the Old Testament, let me show you a verse in the book of Exodus. In Exodus chapter 28, you know the Old Testament tabernacle and all its fittings and everything had a spiritual meaning. And even Aaron, Aaron is a high priest who is a picture of Christ. And even his clothes had a spiritual meaning. You know, for example, he carried the names of twelve tribes of Israel on his breastplate. And that's a picture of how the Lord carries our names on his heart. But here's something else in Exodus 28. In Aaron's dress, the clothes he wore, his garments, it says here in Exodus 28 that he had to have a turban and verse 36, Exodus 28, 36, the Lord told Moses, you must make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it holy to the Lord. It means completely holy. It was to be written on a gold plate on his forehead and that had to be fastened on a blue cord and shall be on the turban, at the front of the turban. Verse 37, and this shall be on Aaron's forehead and Aaron shall take away the iniquity of the holy things. Have you ever heard of the iniquity of the holy things? Now the sin and the sinful things we all understand. But sin in the holy things? Sin in prayer? Sin in preaching? Sin right inside the church in the singing? There's a lot of sin in the holy things. For example, we just sang that song, All to Jesus I surrender. And we can sing it in such a moving way and there could be whole areas in our life that are not surrendered. Take my life and let it be. That's a lovely song but it's a very difficult song to sing. Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Wow! You'd think the people singing that are the most wholehearted people in the world. Really? Have you ever sung it? Take my voice and let me sing, always only for my King. I don't know whether we take seriously the songs we sing. I often say Christians tell more lies to God on Sunday morning than on any other day of the week. With all the songs they sing. How do I know? I did it myself. That's how I know. There are times when I've been in a church service which I'm not leading. Somebody else is leading and they're singing a song. Usually in the olden days, you know, with a song book. And they're singing a particular song. And because it's such a familiar song to me, I've sung it hundreds of times. I don't even need to look at the book. I sing through it. I know the melody. I know the words. And by the time I come to the end of the song, they've announced the next song. And I suddenly realize when they've announced the next song, I say, Lord, I didn't even mean those words I just sang. I didn't pay attention to the words I just sang. I was so familiar with it. So when they're singing the next song, I turn back to the old one and I go through the words. I'm not singing the next song. I say, Lord, I'm sorry for just singing this in such a casual, meaningless way to you, Almighty God, without any reverence. And I slowly go through the words of that song again. And I say, Lord, I want to mean it. This is the battle I have had in my life with lying. And I've determined with all my heart to be free from it. And I'm just giving you a little example of how I really sought to be free. And it's made a world of difference in my life. Because as I've sought to be free from every form of lying and pretense in my life in these little, little areas, just dealing with it's just me and God. I mean, nobody around me in that church knew that I didn't mean what I sang or I was just singing along with everybody else. I think most of the people around me were not meaning it either. Because they're familiar songs, you know. When we sing a song we've never heard before, that really strikes us. The words, boy, there's something in it. But the familiar ones, we are in danger of lying. And sometimes we don't even think what we're saying when we say, not a mite will I withhold. Oh God, everything is yours. Really? Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King. Many other words like that. All to Jesus I surrender. And that is why my brothers and sisters, why in many areas we are missing out on God's best. There's iniquity in our holy things. And Jesus, like Aaron, says to take it away. Jesus has come to take it away. If we confess our sin, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we have to confess it. But because we live in the midst of people who are living at the same low standard we are in, we don't seem to be convicted of these things. You know, a person who's got a very unhygienic, dirty lifestyle can go and live in a slum and feel quite comfortable because everybody around him is like that. But I personally think a lot of Christianity is a slum. There's a lot of lying. There's a lot of dishonesty. There's a lot of pride. There's a lot of selfishness. And yet they've all got the right doctrines. And they think because we're evangelical in doctrine so much of argument among Christians is about doctrine. And we'll discover when we stand at the judgment seat of Christ that he's not going to give us a doctrinal questionnaire to see whether we got all our answers right. He's going to look at our life. And we may discover in that day that some people whom we looked down upon because their doctrines were not right. Perhaps among Roman Catholics. We may discover that they're ahead of us in God's kingdom despite some of their errors in doctrine. Because though their head was wrong, their heart was right. And ours, our head was right and our heart was wrong. Man looks in the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. And so this is so important to value truth in every area. We are in bondage because we don't know the truth first of all about ourselves. Let me show you another verse which I often call one of the scariest verses in the New Testament. It's my perception. One of the scariest verses in the New Testament. 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2. In 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 11 we are told that God himself will deceive certain people. Is it possible that God himself will allow you to be deceived? Listen to this. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false. Now we've always had the impression that God is always out to get people to believe what is true. But here's what God's word says that he will purposely make people believe what is false. That God is out to get some people to believe what is a lie. Really? To believe what is a lie. To believe what is false. Why does God do that? Why in the world would God allow somebody to believe something that's false? That means for example to believe he is born again when he is not born again. To believe he is filled with the Holy Spirit just because he spoke in tongues. To believe that. And to live all his life in that delusion. God will allow him to believe. To believe that a person has got some supernatural gift which he doesn't have. He's got a counterfeit. God will allow people to believe that they are holy when they're not. That scares me. I tell you it scares me. To me that's one of the scariest verses in the Bible. I say Lord is it possible I'm fooling myself that I'm born again? That I'm fooling myself that I'm filled with the Holy Spirit? That I'm fooling myself that I'm holy when I'm not? That I'm fooling myself that I'm building the church Jesus is building when I may be building my own empire? Lord open my eyes. Who are the people Lord you deceive like that? That's the category I don't want to be in. Now listen to this. God will send upon them. Who are the them? That's what I want to know. I don't want to be in that group. Verse 10. It speaks about the activity of Satan in verse 9. In the last days Satan is going to come with powers and signs and false wonders. Please remember that. We're living in that time. False miracles. With all the deception of wickedness for those who perish. Why? This is a very important statement here. Because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. Just listen to that expression. The love of the truth so as to be saved. If I don't receive the love of the truth to be saved the Bible says God will send upon me a strong delusion so that I will believe what is false. There's no partiality with God. It doesn't say well if you're a believer you'll sort of escape that. It's like the law of gravity. If you jump off the roof of a building the law of gravity is not going to first check up whether you're a believer or not. It doesn't matter. It's exactly the same way it will operate on you whether you're spirit filled or born again or unbeliever or atheist. The law of gravity is universal. It's like that. God's laws. He will deceive those who don't love the truth. You say I'm a believer but you don't love the truth when God's trying to show you something about yourself. Maybe in a service like this God speaks something to your heart and you're not willing to face up to it because you think you're so spiritual and you're giving everybody else the impression that you're so spiritual. You're not willing to face up to the fact that you're a hypocrite of the first order. You don't love the truth. I tell you brother you're a candidate for deception. Not by the devil but by God himself. The Bible says the devil's a deceiver. He's against me. The Bible says in Ephesians 4 my lusts are deceitful. My lusts are out to deceive me. The devil's out to deceive me. The world is full of people who are out to deceive me. My only hope is if almighty God my father will protect me from deception. But if God himself turns around also joins all these other people to deceive me I'm doomed. I'm finished. There's no hope for me. And I can be as deceived and think I'm right like the way thousands of years man thought that the sun goes around the earth and man was absolutely convinced he could say I believe what I see. The sun goes around the earth and they were wrong. That is how easily we can be fooled. What's the solution? How shall we escape that deception? Very simple. Love the truth and seek to be saved. Love the truth first of all about yourself. When the Holy Spirit shows you something be honest and face up to it. I told you how I kept on repenting of praying to seek the honor of men. I'd go before God and say Lord that's the truth. I sought honor there. I'm sorry. And it would happen again and again and again for years. And I said Lord I'm determined to be free from it. And when God sees that you're really determined to be free he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. The Lord says you shall seek me and find me not when you seek me whole half-heartedly but when you seek me with all your heart you will find me. Jeremiah 29 13. And it's like that if you're willing to say Lord I want to know all the truth about myself how many of you would seriously say that? Lord I want to know all the truth about myself. I've said that many times to God I said Lord I don't want any surprises at the judgment seat of Christ. I want zero surprises. I don't want you to tell me at the judgment seat of Christ that there's something in me which I did not know when I was on the earth. Why didn't you tell me when I was on the earth? Because I was unwilling to listen? Because I did not love the truth about myself? May it never be. I am determined that when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ there will be nothing that God has to show me which I did not discover when I was on the earth. Of selfishness, pride love of money subtle things which I can imagine I'm free from just because I happen to be better than others you see if everybody in a class is getting 2% and 3% and 4% in mathematics and I get 10% I'm pretty good. That's how a lot of Christians are. They think they're spiritual because they're better than most other people in their church. So what? Jesus said I am the truth. How do we compare when we line up with him? Is it possible that there could be so many things in our life about which it has to say God is not well pleased. We congratulate ourselves because God's using us giving us a word and we know this and we're getting revelation on this verse and that verse but we're not free from lying. The sin of Ananias and Sapphira. I've often felt that if Ananias and Sapphira if Ananias was in the church in Corinth he'd have been an elder, right? Because he's pretty good compared to the others in Corinth. The problem was he was in the wrong church. He was in that fiery church in Jerusalem. And you know that. You can go to some third rate church and you can be an elder there. You come to a church where the fire of God is burning like anything you'd be considered the most carnal backslidden believer. It depends on which company you're in. Dear brothers and sisters, let's learn to love the truth with all of our hearts. God's word is the truth and Christ is the truth so I think of these two. When I look at my life in comparison to Jesus Christ and I seek to do that every day of my life to compare my life with Christ's and I see areas in my life where I'm not 100% truth. In the same way God's word is the truth when I read something in God's word which is not what I have always believed. You know all of us have got a doctrinal mold in which you have grown up. The particular church we grew up in or the particular teacher whom we admired listening to a doctrinal mold and one day I read the scripture and I find some of those things I believed are not exactly like it says in scripture. Am I willing to change my mind and view and say I was wrong all these years I was wrong for 35 years but now I see this is what God's word says. That is loving the truth. But I find very few people who have the moral courage to take that stand and say I was wrong there. I've now discovered through careful study of the word that that is not what God's word teaches even though 99% of people in my church believe it and practice it. That's not what God's word teaches and I'm willing to stand different. I remember when God began to open my eyes to the new covenant and many of the glorious truths that changed my life 37 years ago. One other thing God asked me was this. I was in India and are you willing to stand for this truth even if everybody every Christian in this country that is India says you're wrong and will consider you a heretic. I said yes. I said Lord I've seen it I've studied your word carefully and you've given me revelation and it's changed my life. I will stand for it and it came pretty much to that in the early days. Are you willing to stand? I want to ask you that direct question. Are you willing to stand for something which you've carefully studied God's word and seen to be the truth even though most of the Christians you know don't believe it or do you find your comfort in saying well there are a number of people who believe this so I suppose I must be right. That is a mistake the people in the wilderness made. They thought 10 out of the 12 spies must be right and that's how they missed God's will. God was not well pleased with them. Very often God will bring you and me to the place where he sees whether we are willing to trust him and stand true to him even when most of our other fellow believers disagree with us because they don't love the truth like you do. May God help you to take the right decision at that time. Perhaps that time may come to you this weekend. Let's pray. Heavenly Father as we bow before you we pray that you'll help us to see what a tremendous price you paid to purchase us, to make us what you want us to be, completely conformed to the image of Christ our Lord. Please help us Lord that the light of God shine from heaven brightly in our midst in these days. We humbly ask in Jesus name. Amen.