Lord, I pray that you'd be with us now as we open up your word and you speak to us. Lord, I pray, God, that you'd help me. Lord, I pray that you'd fill my mouth, Lord, with your words. And Lord, I pray that you'd speak to our hearts and change us to be like Christ. We love you. Lord, we thank you for your goodness in Jesus' name. a man of rights and you've got to enter that straight gate and realizing that Jesus is the way. He is not a way. He is not on the way, but Jesus is the way, and that's just the beginning. I said that in our first talk there, that Jesus, knowing that he is the way and understanding he is the way is just simply the beginning. We're gonna learn so much more throughout our studies, but we learn first that Jesus is the way, and now we're gonna look at the aspect of Jesus being the truth. Jesus being the truth. Our key verse is John 14, 6. And he saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Now, in your notes, it says this. Society teaches us that there are many different truths that we can believe. Society, the world, teaches us that there are a lot of truths out there. Now, we got to understand and we believe that there is one standard of truth, and we'll get into that in just a minute. You know, society is the society in which we live in the same as the society in 1960. No, it is not. It is not the same as Sodom and Gomorrah. The society that we live in today is not the same society as it was back in Sodom and Gomorrah. So how in the world can we listen to a society, listen to a world that is in constant change? They're up and they're down. Sometimes it goes to the better as far as morality and things like that. But for the most part, those things are declining. There is a decline in immorality. There's a decline in standards. So we cannot, we cannot look to society. We cannot look to the world for our truths. And that's very important. for us to believe truth never conflicts itself. It does not coexist with lies. Truth never conflicts with itself. It does not coexist with lies. Letter number eight in your notes says there is only one standard of truth. And my friend, he never changes. He never changes, and that is Jesus Christ. The blanks there is Jesus Christ. There is only one standard of truth, Jesus Christ. And we must discern, we must discern between truth and lies. As we come to the ministry of Reformers Unanimous, we got to understand and we got to come to the realization that before we can understand Christ as truth, we've got to understand our need for truth. A person has got to understand that they have a need for truth, not just the need for somebody's opinion. Here at Reformers Unanimous, we don't wanna give you our opinion on things because opinions don't make free. Only the truth makes free. And if we're ever gonna overcome anything, we've gotta come to an understanding and people that come into our program have to understand that they need truth. They need truth in their lives. John 17, 7 says, sanctify them, set them apart, sanctify them through thy truth. Not my truth. These are red letter words. And Jesus is saying here, sanctify them, set them apart. Attics need to be separated. People with strongholds need to be separated. People with pessimism need to be separated. People with anger problems need to be separated. People with drug problems need to be separated. They need to be separated from their sin. They need to be separated from their stronghold. And the Bible says here, Jesus said, sanctify them, set them apart through thy truth, through God's truth. Not man's opinion, not society, but through thy truth. And then he goes on to say, thy word is truth. He doesn't say your word, thy word might be truth. He says, this is fact. Thy word is truth. That's present tense, by the way. Thy word is truth. Jesus is truth. If you're writing down notes or anything, I want you to jot down John chapter number one. And whenever we get done, whenever you get home or in the morning or something like that, I want you to go through and read the first chapter of the gospel of John. I'm just going to read a couple of them. The Bible says in verse number one, in the beginning was the word. And if you look at that, the word is capitalized. That means it is a person. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then if you'll just go on down, you can read the whole thing. It talks about Jesus. That's what it's talking about. And over there in verse number 14, the Bible says, And the Word, capital W, became flesh and dwelt among us. Talking about Jesus. And we beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ was a picture of truth He said I am truth and my friends. That's what we need in our lives today. We need to be sanctified We need to be set apart not by our opinions not by what society says, but we need to be separated set apart by his truth by his By his word this Bible right here makes all the difference GOD'S WORD, JESUS'S WORD MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE. I'VE GOT WROTE DOWN IN MY NOTES HERE, HEBREWS CHAPTER NUMBER FOUR, HEBREWS CHAPTER NUMBER FOUR, NOT TALKING ABOUT A COFFEE MAKER THERE IN HEBREWS, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK OF HEBREWS. HEBREWS CHAPTER NUMBER FOUR, Hebrews chapter number 4 verse number 12. The Bible says this for the Word of God is quick That means alive The Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. God knows your heart. He knows your thoughts. He knows your intents of your heart. And the Bible says here that the word of God comes in and it separates. It separates your will, your intentions in your heart from what God would have you to do. That's how we know when we're wrong because that Bible comes in there. It's what tells us a lie is a lie. The Bible says don't lie. So then whenever we lie, what happens? The Word of God comes in and it separates that and says that's not right. Why is it not right? Because society says it's not right? Because mama told you that a lie was wrong? No, because the Bible says thou shalt not lie. And that, my friend, is the type of truth that we need, that word discerner, that word discerner there in Hebrews chapter four, verse number 12. This is the definition. That which causes to understand. That which causes to understand. So here in the Bible it said it is the word of God that causes us to understand the thoughts and intents of our heart. That's why we can know that we're not right with God. Why? Because we don't line up with the Word of God. Praise His name. See, God doesn't, God just don't wanna leave us out there wondering whether this is right and this is wrong. You know, for what we need in our life to overcome what brings us to the program, God has given us truth. And if we'll let that truth be our discerner, cause us to understand, then we'll be a lot better off. Thy word is truth. Everything we do must be measured, not by what society says, but by what the Bible says. Everything that's measured in our life. It does not need to be filtered through society. It needs to be filtered through the Word of God. And that's what we're gonna look at over the next several weeks. We're gonna look at lies versus truth in this aspect of understanding and realizing that Jesus is truth. What are some of the lies that society says? And what does the Bible have to say about it? Lie of society number one in your notes there. Lie of society number one. How we live our lives will not affect our relationship with a loving God. This is lie of society number one. Now this, over the past, I would probably say 25 years, has been a literal movement within Christianity. You know, God is the fullness of everything. He's not half love and half judgment. You know, I used to think that. God's half love and He's half mercy. He's just, but He is the fullness of them all. He's the fullness of love and He is the fullness of judgment and mercy and condemnation and all. He is righteous in all of it. but yet there has been a movement to swing the pendulum of opinion in society to say that it doesn't matter how you live your life because God is love. And they've taken away or haven't, they've preached and put so much emphasis on just the aspect that God is love that they refuse to recognize that He's a God of judgment, that He's a God of wrath. And very simply, He is. He's the fullness of it all, but yet society tells us, you listen to any, you listen to any of those celebrities, God is love, while they're holding the corona. They'll say, and I have family members, I have family members who get on the Facebook and talk about the love of God while shacked up with somebody that wasn't their husband or wasn't their wife. And my friends, that's wrong. You wanna talk about the love of God? Yeah, He's love. But He's a lot more than that. You see, they want to kind of bypass their bad living by expounding that God is love and He just forgives everything unto His own. Now, my friends, we have got to understand that God is love, but that can't be That's not all that he is. And it's not all that he is. You see, other programs teach us that we must discipline ourselves in our areas of weakness while letting other ones go free. We talked about this a little bit there in the first, in the way. You know, some society programs say, you know, come on, bring everything else with you. They're all right. And that's exactly what these other programs do. They want you to concentrate on those really bad ones and not look at some of your foul language and your immorality and different things like that. They want you to concentrate. Just come on, God is love. And they say that whatever you do will not affect your relationship with God. But here at Reformers Unanimous, we're not gonna lie to you. What you do does affect your relationship with God. How you live your life does affect your relationship with God. Notice this right here. And my friends, if we're not walking close to God, then we gotta be careful. We gotta be careful. Because it's so easy to slip back. It's easy to go backwards in our walk with God. Notice what 1 John 1, 6 says. It says if we say that we have a fellowship, now as we come to Reformers Unanimous, and you can look at this in 2 Timothy chapter number two as well, the last part of that chapter right there, but us coming to Reformers Unanimous, we wanna teach about the relationship of God. Us and God having a relationship, having a partnership. Okay, and we want to talk about that and we want to understand we want our students to understand that it is a relationship with God you and God working together allowing God to live in your life you submitting to the will of God and how he wants to lead your life and it's you and God having a relationship AND IT'S NO LONGER ABOUT RULES AND REGULATIONS, BUT IT'S ABOUT THAT RELATIONSHIP AND HOW WE DON'T WANT TO HINDER THAT RELATIONSHIP. BUT IF WE SAY WE HAVE A FELLOWSHIP, IF WE SAY WE HAVE A PARTNERSHIP, IF WE SAY WE HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM OR GOD AND WALK IN DARKNESS, SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, A LACK OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION, HOWEVER YOU WANT TO SAY IT, THE BIBLE SAYS WE LIE. and do not the truth. We can't say that we have a relationship with God that we're walking with God and living in immorality. That we go to work and we cuss like a sailor. We can't lie and say, yeah, it's me and God doing this thing together. Whenever we're going out and we smoke one cigarette right after the other, never looking for a way to get over that, never thinking that it's just OK, that God just accepts me for who I am. That God doesn't care if I overcome. That's probably a better way to put that. That God doesn't care if I ever, God does care if you overcome smoking. He wants you to overcome that. He does. But we can't lie and say that, oh, he's not worried about that. He doesn't care about who I'm living with or how I'm living my life. As long as I'm not doing this one certain thing, I'm okay. That's a lie. We walk, we're not walking in truth. We're not walking in truth whenever we say that. Sin, sin always breaks fellowship. If we say that we have a fellowship and we walk in darkness, we lie not and do not truth. Sin always breaks fellowship. Write this down, Proverbs 11, 19. Proverbs 11. Verse number 19, this is what the Bible says. As righteousness tended to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. As righteousness tended to life, righteousness, truth. Okay, there are synonyms there. Talking about Jesus, let's put Jesus there. We tend, we concentrate on what Jesus wants us to do. We're living right. Righteousness, right living, living underneath the inspiration of the Spirit of God. It says, as righteousness tended to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. Death breaks fellowship. Sin, the power of sin is death. Psalm 66, Psalm 66, verse number 18. Psalm 66, verse 18, the Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. That's a very simple passage right there. If I regard, if I know that God doesn't like this, remember, what tells us that God doesn't like? His word. When that word says, I don't like this, this isn't right, we just kind of play it off and say, well, it's not like I was getting high. It's better than getting high, God. Whenever we play that stuff off like that, that is regarding iniquity in our heart. And the Bible says the Lord will not hear us. Let me turn over to Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter number five. I should have had all these parts. Probably been a little bit better. Jeremiah chapter 5 verse number 23. Bible says this, but this people hath a revolting and rebellious heart. They are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, let us now fear the Lord our God that giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season. He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Verse number 25, your iniquities. have turned away these things and your sins have withholding good things from you. It's what Jeremiah tells the people. Your sin, and my friends, oftentimes this lie of society saying that God is love and anything you do is not gonna hurt your relationship with him, that's a lie of society to keep people from living in truth. And what it does is that it affects your relationship with God, so therefore victory never comes. You can't achieve victory without being right with God, doing all that we can. Now listen, I'm not talking about sinless perfection here. I'm talking about sinning less, that when God shows us something in our life that is not right, we do everything within our power to remedy that. And we beg God to help us. But those sins will often withhold those good things from God. That's why we have a cycle. That's why some live in victory for a little bit, and then they fall to defeat. What we call relapse. That's why so many programs, that's why so many people, even coming to the Ministry of Reformers Unanimous, that's why some people are not here tonight, because their sin is withholding the goodness of God from them in their life. they come to the ministry and they begin to get victory and God begins to work in their life and then they say well I think I got this now doing pretty good God I know you don't like me living with that person but leads back to sin. Why? Because they're regarding iniquity in their heart, and their relationship isn't right. God, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, in the aspect of the man that I told you about in the Canon of Reformation, Adamus. God just doesn't want to change one thing. He wants to change our whole life. New life in Christ. Abundant and free. It's a complete change. Very simply, we cannot reject, listen to this, we cannot reject the truths of God's Word and say that we are in a right relationship with Him. We cannot reject the truths that are in God's Word and say that we have a right relationship with God. Notice our standard of truth in your notes. John 1, verse number 7. But if we walk in the light, spiritual direction, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. When we walk in fellowship with God and we don't try to get out from underneath that light because of our sin, the Bible says he cleanses us. Now that cleanses, notice the ETH on that, that's something continual. We see a ETH on the walketh It's something that keeps going And he says here what he's saying is a Bible in the Bible is a great truth is the fact that when we walk with God and we're looking to God and we're asking God for help and he shows this thing and we do our best to get that right the Bible says he cleanses us He will continue to cleanse us from that sin work in our life and nothing hinders Him. Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon, the great Prince of Preacher said this, if Christ be anything, then He must be everything. If Christ be anything, He must be everything. My friends, when we come to that acknowledgement, God can begin to do great things in our life. Listen, we'll end with this. Failing to walk with God in fellowship will always lead us back to our strongholds. Failing to walk with God every day day in, day out, walking with God. Not trying to look 20 years down the road, but just simply walking every day with God. When we fail to do that, there is not a doubt in my mind, I don't care who it is, it will always lead us back to a stronghold. Whether that's drugs, whether it's immorality, whether it's anger, whether it's depression, whatever it may be, we do not walk with God. Whenever we're not in fellowship with Him, we always lean back to that stone. Lie of society number one says, God is love. God is love. Nothing, no matter how you live, nothing will affect your relationship with God. That's a lie. Let's not be fooled by the society's lies. What you do does affect your relationship with God, it does affect your walk with God, and it does affect your victory. Let us walk in the light as he is in the light. Let's pray. Father, we love you tonight, and we're very thankful for your goodness.