The word integrity is a beautiful word.
It means whole or undivided. Moral uprightness is the idea of integrity. Integrity is being what you say and verbal integrity is underwritten in this entire commandment. Living with your life what you say with your lips. Jesus said from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks or literally from the overflow of what's inside the heart the real you the inner core the mouth will speak so that our mouths give us away eventually the mouths at some point will reveal what the condition of the heart is. For nearly three decades the newlywed game was a staple of American television.
On the show as you recall recently married couples were separated asked some questions about their spouses and then put back together to see how well they knew each other. At times it didn't go very well and today here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, Skip Heitzig reminds us that God doesn't need a test to let us know how well He knows us. He not only knows us but He knows what's best for us. That's why He has some commandments for us to follow and we'll focus in on one of them again today as we continue our current series called God's Top Ten. But before we join Pastor Skip with that study we want to tell you about this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. Fake news. It used to be restricted to tabloids at the grocery store checkout and it used to be so obvious.
Chimpanzee head put on human body. But now there are entire websites dedicated to helping us figure out if a story, speech, or statistic is true or not. Here's Skip Heitzig with an important question. Is there such a thing as absolute truth?
I want you to just think about that question. We want to help you get started in answering that question with two brand new booklets by Pastor Skip. Why Truth Matters and God and Suicide. You see the Bible makes truth claims and some of those claims are well pretty absolute but how can you know it's really true? These resources will help you better understand the nature of truth so you can pursue God's truth in your life and there are a way to thank you for your gift of $35 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach.
Get your copies when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. We hope you can stay tuned after today's teaching for Skip and Lydia back in studio with us and now let's join Skip Heitzig in Exodus chapter 20 verse 16 as we get started today. Parents I know you've got wonderful kids and some of you even think your kids are more wonderful than everybody else's kids. That's a prerogative of especially grandparents but some parents as well. But did you ever have to teach your kids to lie just because they were so perfect you needed to just balance them out so they'd be like everybody else? No I bet you had the experience that everybody else has that they were in the course of their upbringing maybe engaged or caught in such an enterprise and you had to correct it and tell them why they weren't to lie. Now we know that man was created in God's image but we also know that the image was marred and it was marred at the fall and so the psalmist declares this, even from birth the wicked go astray from the womb they are wayward and speak lies. And Proverbs 22, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. So the fall of man is reflected in man's propensity propensity to lie, to tell untruth. Like Satan who was the one who perpetrated the fall from the beginning. It was all about lies. Satan is called the father of lies. He lied in the garden. Has God said?
Oh he won't do that. Jesus said to the Pharisees you belong to your father the devil for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies. Which means when we deliberately engage in a lie we are shadowing not God's personality but Satan's personality.
We're becoming an ally. No wonder then in the New Testament book of Acts Peter said to Ananias in the early church why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. So the commandment touches on the character of God. It touches on the credibility of man and also on the core issue of integrity.
That's really what the commandment is all about. Integrity. The word integrity is a beautiful word.
It means whole or undivided. Moral uprightness is the idea of integrity. Integrity is being what you say and verbal integrity is underwritten in this entire commandment. Living with your life what you say with your lips. Jesus said from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks or literally from the overflow of what's inside the heart the real you the inner core the mouth will speak. So that our mouths give us away eventually.
The mouths at some point will reveal what the condition of the heart is. There was a teacher who said to one student who was particularly sloppy she said to this young boy why don't you brush your teeth yeah I can see what you had for breakfast today and he said what did I have he was a smart aleck she said you had eggs he said uh-uh that was yesterday. Yeah that's pretty gross.
Yeah that's pretty gross. Well let me in culling through the scripture in a glance give you a few different ways that verbal integrity is breached. First of all slander. Slander would fall under this commandment.
You shall not bear false witness. Slander is ruining another's character on purpose. It says in proverbs 12 18 there is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword.
Very descriptive. It's like an old Japanese proverb that says the tongue's only three inches long it can kill a man six feet tall. There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword. Ever met a sharp tongued individual? Ever been around such a person who's got that bite all the time and slanders other people?
A verbal terminator? You know what the translation of the word devil is? Devil is diabolos in Greek. It means false accuser or slanderer. A person who's a slanderer it's like he walks up to the devil and says we're partners. That's his job.
He's called and remember revelation 12 the accuser of the brethren who accuses them night and day before God. So slander is one way. A second way is exaggeration. Americans we're famous for this.
Hyperbole is our is our middle name. That weighs a ton. That weighs a ton.
I'm starving to death. Oh I must have driven for a million miles. You know we stretch everything out. It can be harmless. Sometimes it can be dangerous. For instance in a relationship if the wife says oh my husband is always late or my wife is never nice. Those aren't good things to say.
They can do a lot of damage. In 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue on his first trip westward because he knew that his crew aboard the ship was skittish about spending too much time out too much time out at sea far away without knowing where they were going. Columbus it is said kept two logs of his journey. Two sets of logs. One he computed calculated what were the actual distances according to his calculation. The second set of logs were to calculate shorter distances on purpose so that his men wouldn't think they're too far away from home.
Here's the here's the twist however. The irony is his false set of books were more accurate come to find out than what his own calculations were. So even his his own lies his own foreshortened exaggerations were more accurate than what he thought were his actual distances. But in exaggeration I think certain testimonies can be like that. I've heard testimonies by people and then I've heard them told again and then I've heard them told again and it sort of seems that with some people as they tell their testimony because they know if they add more juicy stuff they get a rise out of people that it's sort of like a fish story. You know how the fish grows every time it's told?
How big it was? And so the guy starts out maybe you know I drank a beer in high school and then later on it's like I had an alcoholic problem. God delivered me from alcoholism. Now God doesn't needs to deliver you from lying. When you tell your testimony you don't have to add spice to make it more dramatic.
Jesus loves to save anybody from anything. But it can be exactly that. But it can be exaggerated. A third way is or a third way is gossip. Gossip. Now the Bible has a unique description of gossip. The Bible calls it tail bearing. Tail bearing and talks about those who are tail bearers. That means telling something without proper investigation. And a tail bearer will peddle gossip and there's lots of people who love to hear it. It has always always amazed me that in the church that Christians generally love gossip. It's fun to hear. Proverbs 18, the words of a tail bearer are like tasty trifles.
They go down into the inmost body. I discovered something however as I was studying through this the Hebrew word for tail bearing and tail bearer in the Old Testament is anah and it appears 329 times in the Old Testament. 42 of those times it's not translated to speak. It's translated to hear. Same word. Isn't that interesting? Not translated to tell something but to hear something. I think the point being is there wouldn't be so many open mouths if there weren't so many open ears. Tell me more.
I want to pray more about that brother, sister. So can I encourage you to apply a five-fold test to people who would want to give you an evil report about anything or anyone? A five-fold test.
These five questions let this be your grid before entertaining and receiving an evil report. Number one, what is your reason for telling me this? Now they might say I'm just concerned but you might dig and find out it's jealousy. It's anger.
They're lashing out. Number two, where did you get your information? Give me a source. Oh I don't want to reveal my sources. Then don't entertain the report. Number three, have you gone directly to those involved or are you just picking up more hearsay? Did you personally go and try to resolve this with that person? Number four, have you personally checked out all the facts? Have you gone to investigate this and gotten all the facts? You know the old axiom, figures don't lie but liars sure can figure.
Get all the facts. And number five, can I quote you on this? I love to use that one and I love to see the response on the face. Well thank you for telling me this. If you don't mind, let me take your name down because I'm going to quote you.
Leave me out of this. I encourage you to apply that five question grid before receiving an evil report. Fourth, flattery. I think that falls under this commandment. Flattery. False praise.
You're saying things you don't really mean but you you're saying them because you know that people like to hear them and you can manipulate them. That's flattery. That's flattery. By the way, the English word flattery comes from a French word that means to caress or stroke with the flat of one's hand. Stroking the person, giving them feel good stuff just because you know what you can get out of it.
Thomas Brooks used to say, while a donkey is being laid, you can lay any burden on its back. Flattery. Proverbs 26, a flattering mouth works ruin. Why? Because it's not real. It appeals only to the ego. It's not sincere. Now some of you will remember, and I know there's better examples, but I'm stuck in that time warp when I say the name Eddie Haskell.
Does anybody resonate with that? You remember Leave it to Beaver and Eddie Haskell was the quintessential flattery. Hello Mrs. Cleaver. You look so nice today.
And he was always buttering up Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver because he was a weasel. Now flattery is different than encouragement. Encouragement is good. There's not enough genuine encouragement in the church. Encouragement is stuff you say that you mean. It's from the heart.
Flattery is just gushing out compliments to win favor. I think that falls under bearing false witness. And then fifth and finally, excuses to escape consequences. We call these white lies. Excuses to escape consequences. The evangelist Billy Sunday used to call an excuse. An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.
Very descriptive. It's what teachers tell students, or students tell teachers as to why their assignment was late. Or like the story I've told you about the four boys that missed class and they said we had a flat tire, so the teacher said you missed the test.
First question, she put them in four corners, which tire was flat? Ephesians chapter four we read, therefore putting away lying, let each one speak truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one another. We speak truth because we are one family and we are related to the God of truth who loves truth. And so because we're members one of another, we put speaking lies and falsehood far from us.
Basic principle, a closed mouth gathers no feet. Better to not say it than to say it and regret it. Jesus put it this way, let your yes be yes and your no be no. And that is a beautiful encapsulated description of verbal integrity. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. So you shall not bear false witness.
Touches on the character of man, the character of God, the problem that man has with truth, and finally the core issue of integrity. So don't live like that gal Arabella Young. I don't know if you've heard her story, Arabella Young has a tombstone somewhere I read. There's her tombstone, she's in the ground, her name Arabella Young printed on the tombstone, her birth underneath, her death May 24th. And this inscription, beneath this stone a lump of clay lies Arabella Young, who on the 24th of May began to hold her tongue. That's a sad, sad epitaph.
Yep, she finally held her tongue when she died. May that not ever be for a child of God. Well, it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, the ultimate truth is eternal truth. And the ultimate lie is eternal lie. And one of the first eternal truths that the Bible underscores is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's the first eternal truth.
Nobody can make it on their own. We're all failures in some degree, in some course. Followed by another truth, someday we'll stand before God to answer for our lives. Followed by a third truth, those who have not repented or come in contact with the one who gives life and cleanses by his blood.
We'll face an eternity without him. The fourth is the best truth of all. Forgiveness is available for everyone who believes. Those who confess and those who turn that lavish love of Christ. The one who said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. Don't forget that first word, the way, the way. He is the way for all truth breakers, for all of us who have fallen short to enter into his kingdom and glory.
Thanks for tuning in today to connect with Skip Weekend Edition. The teaching you just heard was part two of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And it's just one message in our latest teaching series, God's Top 10.
Have you ever been asked about how 10 Commandments given thousands of years ago are relevant to us today? As you follow along in this series, Skip reminds us that they're not only relevant, they are essential. So be encouraged and inspired by what you get inspired as you listen again and maybe share this series with a friend. You can add all 17 teachings to your audio library bundled as a CD package for only $39 plus shipping.
Or if you prefer to get each teaching individually, just visit connectwithskip.com or call us at 1-800-922-1888. And now let's go in studio for Skip and his wife, Lenya, to talk a bit about God's Top 10. Lenya? Today's message tackled an interesting topic, truth. I just, I can't help it. You can't handle the truth. I don't know.
You probably do a better job at that. But truth and what we believe truth to be and how it affects every area of our lives. Let me ask you, what is the best way to have the truth in our hearts and heads so the truth is what comes out of us? Well, every Christian listening to my voice remembers the infamous words of Pilate in the gospel, where he said to the Lord Jesus Christ on trial when he mentioned the truth, as if to be cynical, what is truth?
In other words, he was reflecting the Roman mentality that you really can't know what is absolute truth. So it's nothing that comes from our modern culture. It's always been around where people question what is the truth. Although we get that on campuses today, right? So many students are like, so what is truth? Right.
It's a relativistic worldview. And as believers, we only have to go to what the Lord Jesus prayed to his Father in John 17, when he said, Father, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As believers, we don't have to look any further than our Bibles.
Our Bibles are the written revelation of God to man, preserved by God himself. And everything that pertains to life and godliness, Peter said, comes through the knowledge of him who called us. And that knowledge comes by what he has revealed in his word.
So we begin there. And with that truth firmly embedded, that's why we have to refer to it daily. We have to get ahead and have our quiet time and go to church and read the Bible, because that forms a grid, that forms a worldview, our own worldview, our own lens, by which we view the world and hear the messages of the world filtered through that grid. So then we can go, uh, wait a minute, that statement isn't quite right.
That's really not. The world system is really warped. So there's a lot of untruth out there. And unless we have that grid in our minds, some of that mistruth gets through.
Exactly. And then I think there's an attitude that we all have to live with, that we're going to be truthful, that we're going to walk in the light, which is a metaphor for being honest and true and upright. We're going to walk in the light as he is in the light. And when we do that, there's not only a cleansing effect that happens, but there's a stability that comes along with that in our lives so that we expect in the world we're not going to get pure truth. You can read it in print, you can hear it from people, but it's only what God the Holy Spirit has revealed through his word that enables us to discern between truth and error. After all, we have a real enemy named the devil, and his principle tool is deception, and it's going on daily constantly all the time.
Thus, we need that filter. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. So we begin with him, and he builds us outward. Well, thanks a lot, guys, and I hope you'll take some time to connect with Skip today. And you can when you like him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, or Instagram. You can also get many of his teachings, topics, devos, and more on the YouVersion Bible app under Skip Heitzing. So what's wrong when you're never satisfied? It may be a case of affluenza, and we'll learn more about that next time here on Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
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