Oh man, Oren, that haircut is rockin', buddy. Hey, you and dad look the same, you just need a big beard. You are a good helper, my friend. Look at this. That's wonderful. Boys love that kind of thing, eh? Good morning. How are you today? Very good. How you doing? Doing well, doing well. Blessing the house in favor. Hey, Matt. Hey, how's it going, buddy? Good, how are you? Good. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. I feel like it was in my hair. I feel like we're getting a little private. No one else is here. Maybe when we got here, it was like, oh, I forgot. Everyone's just like, oh, they're in the car at the parking lot. I'm like, did I miss something? I don't know. Wasn't she happy? Wasn't she happy? No. It's always sleeping in my bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah It's alright. You have to know all about it. Get that whooping rod. I think that would be the most humiliating thing in the world. You haven't written in this have you? Huh? You haven't written in this yet have you? No. So what I'm doing, and I hope to, that's going to be my, I think, lifer. No, no, no, you're going to sell this to me. Oh. I want the red one. That's why I have the two hardcovers because I'm really particular with my notes and I'm still like... Just trying to get everything, because every time I go through the Bible, I find more things that I need to color code. You're trying to figure out exactly what colors. Yeah, like even yesterday, I was just like, I found a couple of words, because I'm working through Luke, right? And seeing like certain words, I'm like, oh, boule, and so I got purple. And it's like, so I'm glad that, like, this is so nice. This is going to be like, we'll see. So I'm reading box response now. Is he good? He's vicious, man. Really? In that course that I sent you, he's so gentle. I've only read so far is dealing with Horton, but just rails on him. Really? Oh, completely. He just misses everything. Interesting. He actually says that, what does he say? He just boils everything down that Horton used to supersessionism. Like basically like replacement theology. And I'm like yeah but Horton dealt with that in his essay. Sometimes we can do that. Like he clearly doesn't believe that. Well it's even like when you said even locks and like I haven't listened to him but it's like they kind of attribute that once they have it in your mind. Like, sometimes it's hard to get out those caricatures, right? Well, I'm like, in your framework, like, yes, it's replacement theology. Right. But he doesn't accept your framework. Sure. Like, you have to be fair. Like... Well, and the thing is, like, are we listening? Maybe, I don't know. But yeah, I would have never guessed that he was just savage like that. Well, this week, we're going to sit down and watch some of those, right? Yeah, I would love to. Hey, come on. Hey, Matt. There's just these, but there's not the HDMI. Oh, yeah. We'll be doing this thing. Oh, OK. Yeah. So that's an extra adapter. I didn't know all that. Yeah. Yeah. My bad, brother. Cat5 over HDMI. Well, part of me feels like I'm Wow. Just ask Thornton in the side, eh? It'll either turn the TVs on or blow up your laptop, I don't know. I would blame Matt. Not you, that Matt. So what am I doing here? Have you got any biking in yet Matt or no? It's been a brutal spring actually. I pulled my calf a couple weeks ago so I'm like whatever. Yeah we were at the swimming pool a couple weeks ago and I was swimming after the kids and it just seized up and it was just like pulsating like it was just in constant retraction and it still hurts now I'm still limping. Old. But if it does warm up, like I don't even know if the rattlesnakes are out yet. They're out? I hate rattlesnakes. I remember when you said, like, Allison saw one and freaked out. I was like, I would probably react the same way. All right, well, we'll start her up. A little smaller numbers this morning, but that is... Did you notice last Sunday that you were preaching on something particular this Sunday? No, I just mentioned that I'm teaching. I thought Matt was on. Are you still planning for next week then, Matt? Yeah. 10th command? Okay, good. So I'll try to get her done by quarter after. My brother. I'll save Rahab for like 1013. Providence. Well, maybe, actually, Matt, can you open us up in a word of prayer? Where's Matt? Dear God, it's good to be able to come together this Thursday. Thank you, God, we thank you for the opportunity just to freely gather at church. I was thinking this morning, God, just, we've had a glimmer of church being more painful to attend, and we just rejoice and thank you, God, that we can still, as a country, just hopefully gather and worship you. I pray, God, that we wouldn't take it for granted, but that we would be truly blessed and that we would find much joy just to be able to be together as a church family, God, and listen to your word. I pray that you'd use the ninth commandment, and Pastor Ryan, to just speak to us, God, that you would open up your word, and that you would convict us, God, of lying and speaking truth, and that God, yeah, you would just use your word to help shape us and sanctify us. Amen. Amen. So as a review from last week, would anyone be able to sort of help refresh my mind as to what the context of the ninth commandment, namely, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. We're not going to get into all the words, but what is the general context into which Moses is writing this for a particular people to use as they live as God's people, as a representation of his rule and reign on earth? Because it doesn't say, thou shalt not lie. Now, of course, there are implications of it, but it says you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Do you remember any of the little nuggets that we spent time sort of picking apart and trying to put together into a picture of the original purpose or motivation of Moses giving this? Very good. Covenant community. It's against your neighbor. Now you shouldn't lie to anybody, but especially to your neighbor. And that goes back to Exodus 19, where there to be a kingdom of priests. God's own peculiar people that he had pulled out of Egypt. And I don't know what it was like living in Egypt, I don't know the cultural norms, but usually in contexts of paganism and idolatry, anything goes. And so I think God is pulling God in there to be unique as they live together. And so it's a covenant community, right? You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Where were a lot of disputes settled? Anyone remember that? At the gate, right? Which helps you think of Psalm 127 where it talks about filling your you're quiver full of children, so when they're at the gate, you're like, what are they doing at the gate? Well, this is where matters and civil cases were hammered out and disputed, and so the people who had wisdom and jurisprudence would be there, hopefully, honestly, settling accusations that people, because we live in a broken world, and so you're gonna have all kinds of issues that arise, and so you're not to bear false witness, and it's the context of a court case, Okay? And so you can lie, as it were, before others to either get yourself off the hook or to harm your neighbor. Okay? And so that's just sort of some things. Don't bear false witness. And false witness is this idea of deceit. It's an interesting Hebrew word, sheker. Okay? And so don't act with deceit. And we're going to start unpacking some of the implications of that. Like, of course, lying is blatant deceit. But you can tell little white lies, to borrow Kuya's phrase, and be full of deceit. You can even speak, as it were, truthful words with deceitful motives, right? Sometimes gossip can be like that, right? I didn't tell a lie. But were you acting deceitfully against your neighbor to harm them? Okay, so that's kind of what we unpacked last week. And we didn't get too far. I'm not gonna spend too much time ripping through these. The first that we saw, Where is it? Slander. That's just outright saying mean things, wrong things, for the intent and purpose of harming one another. And there's that wonderful Watson quote, the scorpion carries poison in his tail, the slanderer carries his poison in his tongue. To pretend friendship to a man and slander him is most odious." So what would it look like? Say I was slandering Artie. I haven't, but what would it look like? When it says, you know, when you're not to bear false witness against your neighbor, and I'm saying slander is one illustration of that, what does it mean to slander? Or give an example of? It makes someone look poor and cruelly. Sure, yeah, make them look foolish, make them look stupid, make them look fill-in-the-blank, right? And just outright saying something mean often, okay? And slander is usually behind the back. So it's kind of like gossip. If you have Venn diagrams, there's gonna be overlap, but slander is often malicious in its intent. And you can see that in passages like Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 where there's some overlap. And then I wanted to say, but why do we slander others? It's one thing to say, I gotta stop slandering, but do we just put up band-aids on our slanderous tongue? And like every other one of the commandments, They all flow out of the heart. If you're downstream and you keep purifying the water and it keeps coming and you have to keep purifying it, what is the best thing to do? Keep purifying the water upstream? Or should you do something else maybe that's a little more wise? you need to deal with the source of it, right? So you go downstream, and if there's a rotting carcass there that is polluting all the water downstream, instead of cleaning the water downstream, go and deal with that rotting carcass, and then all the water that flows will be clean. And so, like all the other commands, we deal with the heart. For out of the heart come all these vile things, says Jesus. I know we've seen that, but it's worth repeating. The reason we do this is one, often we have self-love, and two, we have to be honest, sometimes we just want to hurt someone, right? Maybe we're jealous, maybe they got something we like, maybe they're doing something we wish we could be doing, right? So, you know, often, I remember the first church I went to, have you ever heard of worship wars? Like you have worship teams? And often you would just hear just slanderous things against people who had been brought into the worship team. Because in a charismatic church, that's as popular or more popular than being the pastor. Because worship is huge. Now, I would say worship is huge. I mean, music is huge there. And so you'd hear slanderous things about their motives or about mistakes. Just cruel things. And why would they do that? Well, one, because they want to elevate themselves, or maybe they feel insecure with someone else getting something they wished, and they actually want to speak deceitfully or act deceitfully for the harm of their neighbor, okay? And so I did quote Proverbs 26, you can read that. But the slander is like that one that has like a nice glaze on it. But you know, we got the fiery lips, but really there's that evil heart, okay? And so they might even say gracious things. He says, do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart. And so Begg says this, stirred by hatred or jealousy. And so this is sort of the heart issue. If we're speaking slanderous words, it's hard to stop speaking slanderous words if our heart is full of hatred and jealousy. And we have to be honest, sometimes we feel this way. And that's just because our hearts need to be sanctified. They need to be made sweet. And that only comes by grace as we put off that old man and as we approach Christ and ask Him for that help to mortify. So, slander doesn't necessarily always have to be mean words outrightly. I was thinking about Absalom. Remember Absalom? He did some work at the gate too. Oh, you mean he was like fixing the wall at the gate? No. Is anyone familiar with the story of Absalom? What was he doing at the gate? He was slandering his father, David. How was he slandering his father, David? Go for it, Nathan. You're doing the politician. Well, I was prime minister. Yeah. Well, actually, when you see that, actually, when people are running for prime minister or for premier, they're constantly slandering one another. So if you want to know what it looks like, you just see that. They're trying to bring the other person down to elevate themselves. I would actually find it refreshing for someone to say, that's an excellent point, and I need to actually work on that. It is kind of tedious just listening to people slander each other. So yeah, if I was king, basically saying that David doesn't care about you. Right? Because people would come to the gate and he's like, where's your king? If I was king, I would deal with this. And so Absalom, he did some stealing. What did he steal? Yeah, he stole the heart of the people. And so there's that word, that coup d'etat. And so it didn't look bad. He's just trying to make himself look generous and loving. But really, he had come to harm his dad. Now, of course, David had done some things that precipitated that. But what Absalom did was slander. And he wasn't like, oh, my dad's a lazy. My dad doesn't care about you. But he so acted in shakir, in deceit. And then they gathered his men and then of course David fled. Here's something I thought was interesting too and the reason I add this is sometimes we can read motives into it, especially online. I try to stay off social media now because someone will answer and you know what the first thing I think is? I think the worst of them. They might be graciously answering. They might be whistling and saying, I'm going to show my love and answer in a way. And when I read their response, because maybe they're correcting me, I'll start telling other people about this post that someone had against me. But maybe it wasn't. So de Young notes, slander also includes publicly assuming and communicating to others, whenever you see brackets, I'm adding to his quote, the worst possible motives for other people's intentions, and refusing ever to give people the benefit of the doubt. So if Nathan rebukes me, he could do so out of love, and I can start actually slandering Nathan by saying, oh, he's jealous of me, he just wants to harm me, and all this, and I'm acting deceitfully, because I haven't actually talked with Nathan to find out if that's why he did it. And so sometimes online is just sort of an increasing cesspool. And then the slander intensifies. So just be very careful before you hit the enter button or the return or whatever it is. For me to impugn into Nathan the worst motives is to slander his character. Because I'm making him look like a self-serving jerk. When actually he could be like, faithful are the wounds of a friend. So, I'm just using Nathan as an example, but, right, or say a pastor rebukes you, or say a brother in your grace group, or a sister, right? Be very careful, you know, of slandering someone's character, okay? And I just, I thought I would just add that because the online world, it's so easy now to slander and get away with it. Now, of course, we don't get away with it. Everything is laid open and naked before Him with whom we have to do. But often the person can't defend themselves, which is often why we so easily slander the motives of people. He says this. something happens to us and we just assume, right, this can happen at church. Sometimes people feel that about a pastor, just like, you know, I'm busy, like, Sunday's just my zone day and Saturday night, right? And they, you know, say I just walk past somebody without even, like, saying good morning, but just because I'm, like, praying or something noble, of course, right? And the person might be like, why is he so angry at me? And then they tell the husband, and then on the way home, it's like, did you see what Pastor Ryan did to me? Maybe, but maybe not. Pastor Ryan's also just a limited, fallible fool who sometimes just forgets to say good morning. I try to. You know, she didn't talk to me because he's mad at me, or the way they wrote that email. And I think we've all done this and had it done to us. And so that's just one of the things. Let us be very careful of deceitfully impugning someone's character, okay? Now you might think it's not a big deal, But actually, I thought of that song. We sang it probably almost a year ago. Oh Lord, our Lord. Charles and Caitlin, I think, led it. And it's from Psalm 15. Oh Yahweh, who may sojourn in your tent, who may dwell on your holy mountain, he who walks blamelessly and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart. Okay, so if I'm slandering Nathan, I might not, if I say something, I might not be speaking truth. I might be slandering him, and slander is often a lie. It's always a lie. Speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. Just read those verses. Just notice, again, Venn diagramming it, how there's overlap, right? Truth in the heart versus slander in the tongue. And to slander with the tongue is to do evil to your neighbor. And you'll take up a reproach against a friend. So here is, I believe it's David. I could be mistaken. I forget the superscription here. But it's very similar to Psalm 24 as well. Yeah, Psalm of David. You know, now of course I've read articles on this and it's ultimately the answer to this is only Christ, but this is also for David to be able to say, I need to make sure that my heart is right. If I'm coming to offer, to have the priest offer sacrifice for me, I need to be cleansed of these sins, including maybe slander, right? It's like Psalm 5, the Lord hates the evil man, right? Who does these kinds of things. And so it is serious to Yahweh. And so we need to be careful, and if we're guilty of it, to confess that sin, and to put it away, and to mortify it. Okay? Solomon says, the one who spreads slander is foolish. And I have a footnote there. That doesn't mean you're an unbeliever, because you're like, oh, you're saying I'm a fool, like the unbeliever says, or the fool says that it's hard. No, but you're acting like one. If I'm slandering, say I'm slandering, slandering my wife. I don't think I have, I hope to God I haven't. But say I am. I'm acting like an unbeliever at that moment. Or if I'm slandering John, or Josh, or Matt, or fill in the blank. I'm acting foolish. I'm acting as if there's no God. Because God takes slander seriously. And to slander someone is to harm the image of God. I'm going to look at the application after. I'm not going to do the addendum. I think we'll move on. Gossip is related to slander. And the only difference is that it's maybe not so, that's what I'm thinking of. The intent is still there, but it's maybe not so malicious. Like slander, you are intending to do tons of harm. Sometimes gossip is just not thinking. Less calculated. That's it. Very good. Thank you. It's less calculated. Now, it's just as harmful. You can see that in James 3, such a little member can set on fire the course of hell. So I'm not saying that gossip is no big deal, like avoid slander, but it's less calculated, but it's not any less dangerous. Okay, so Proverbs 26, with no wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, that's another word for gossiper, Strife quiets down. Like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife." So often, gossipers are contentious. And I was thinking about it, maybe last night, Proverbs 6. There are six things that the Lord hates, the A7, that are an abomination to Him. And of course the haughty look is first, but the last is the one who brings and breeds contention between brothers. And so right before that actually you have an inclusio, so you have one who separates close friends through his gossip and then the other one, and I think what's happening in Proverbs 6 is it's highlighting actually the divisive nature of a gossiping tongue. And it's a toeva, it's an abomination. Okay? So, the words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, and they go down into the innermost parts of the stomach, and that's the dangers. They said, whether it's slander, but especially gossip, three people are harmed. Who are the three people who are harmed when we're gossiping? The slanderer, the person you're slandering above, and the person you're slandering above, too. Okay. That's right, but I have actually one other... Incorrect. Right. Right. So the one who is doing the slandering, the one who is being slandered, of course, Christ. Right? The one in whom the slanderer and the one being slandered in whose image they've been made, right? And so we might not think it's a big deal, but actually we are so harming our neighbor and tragically we're actually harming ourselves and we're grieving the very heart of Christ, okay? Why do we like to listen? So this is not just sharing gossip, but listening to gossip. It's delicious, right? You think of like donuts, hey, goes right down, right? It tastes good and I can feel it. Okay, we love secrets. And sometimes actually gossip, I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but sometimes gossip helps us to posture into places, it's almost like Gnostic knowledge. Like you feel you have an advantage over others if you know something. It's interesting, right? I'm not gonna get too psychoanalytical, but we love to hear trash about others, because again, we love to feel elevated, but if no one else knows it, I almost feel superior almost. And that's dangerous. We love secrets, especially bad, juicy ones. We can just as easily feel better than others by hearing a negative report about them as we can sharing it. Just hearing it. Did you hear about that? Did you hear what they did to their kid? Did you hear their kid got drunk? And then it maybe moves into slander and stuff like that. So we have to be careful. Always deal with the heart. I hope that if I were ever gossiping, say, against Matt, someone would be like, Ryan, You're harming him, you're harming me, and you're harming yourself. So Matt, you are right, four. Right. I hope I, I try to be very serious about that. Like, I really don't want that. I am guilty of it, but I know I hate it. And I know you all hate it too, but I really hate gossip. I don't know. I just, that's something I really want to root out of my life and the lives of the members of this church, right? So, one, why do we listen to it? One, we love it because we have a propensity to love trash, right? The second, though, this is, I think, me. I think this would be my guilt. In listening to gossip, I'm just fearful of rebuking the person. They're saying something I know is wrong, And at that moment, have you ever felt that, where someone's gossiping, and you're like, I need to speak up, and then you don't, and then you just feel so shameful after, and you have to repent? Often though we know that the gossiper is sinning, we are afraid to offend them by gently rebuking them, right? The fear of man brings a scenario. Yes? I think part of the fear is that when we hear that gossiping will come to us, we get all unsettled, and we know that it will come to us very next time. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what I love so much about the Lord Jesus. In one sense, He did care what people thought, because He wanted to be winsome. But at another level, He really didn't care. He spoke the truth in love. I want to say Mark 9. But anyways, they come and they ask their questions and they say, teacher, we know that you always speak the truth, but literally it says you do not look at a man's face. It's very interesting in the Greek. So he doesn't really care who it is that's sinning. He rebukes anybody who is in sin, even if that would lead to his murder, or if it would lead to him himself being slandered. And that's where loving neighbor, as we love ourselves, will play. It's like, wait a minute. I'm going to stand up for, say, Justine. Oh, but then you're going to get slandered. That's OK. This is what love looks like in community, right? And so Proverbs 29, 25, I love the LSB, actually. I always had it in the ESV, the fear of man brings snare. But trembling before man brings a snare. It's interesting because it's a different word than yara, right? So trembling before man. brings a snare, but he who trusts in Yahweh, and BSV just says we'll be safe, but this is a wonderful translation here. We'll be set securely on high, and it has this idea of being in a fortress up in the mountains. Right, you're inaccessible. And so, the fear of man does bring a snare, and we have to be careful. DeYoung says, our silence in the face of gossip is just as sinful as the gossip itself. Okay, here's a couple verses that you can memorize. Better is proof that is revealed, or as the ESV says, open rebuke is better than hidden love, sorry. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. And then there's one I've always thought about. I've been rebuked by some loving brothers and sisters. It says, he who rebukes a man afterwards will find more favor than he who flatters with the lips. So the most loving thing you can do is stop the gossip. Oh, there it is there, 28-23, okay? We'll keep rocking, we've got 15 minutes. So the first was slander, the second is gossip, the third is flattery. And Beg's quote here is wonderful to help you distinguish. If gossip is saying something behind a person's back that we would never say to his face, then flattery is saying to a person's face what we would never say behind his back. That sermon was great. You would never say that behind my back, but you might say it to my face. And again, it's deceit. You might be just saying it because you're a man pleaser, or maybe there's more nefarious motivations, but I thought that was interesting. Gossip is saying behind someone's back what you would never say to their face, but here flattery is saying to their face what you would never say. That was the best casserole I've ever had in my life. But going home, then you're like, actually that tape, it was like burnt and gross. The second best. I miss you, Chalupy. Why do we do this? And I know it's repetitious, but I want to keep getting at the heart of it, right? It's an inordinate love of self. We flatter our neighbors to benefit ourselves, right? Maybe we want them just to like us or to accept us. Or maybe you want to actually feel superior and have dominance over them. Or maybe we do it for safety, right? Say there's a bully, and you're just flattering him because you don't want him to bully you, rather than actually standing up and just saying, no, what you're doing is wrong. Or worse, we might actually flatter them to harm them. The emperor's new clothes. Have you never heard of that? What's the gist of it? Right. Right. So you have this king and he's just walking around naked. It actually reminded me, I was at the hospital yesterday and just everyone's playing the same game. It's like, this is so insane. So insane. Right? Like all the scientific data we have, it's just insane. But everyone's playing the game. They're flattering each other, but they're acting deceitful. Right? They got like, the dog comes in and his mouth's like, yes. And it's like, so, to move back to the tale back then and not to, I think, the gong show of today, there's this emperor and he's walking around naked but no one wanted to tell him. So they all flattered him. Looking good today. Man, that's a wonderful outfit. And so they're flattering him rather than speaking the truth in love. And this poor guy. Huh? Wonderful. Pre-sin. Right? And so they play the game and they're actually, right? And everyone thinks the emperor is insane. But if someone would have had the love and the courage to say, um. Right. Right. Right. And, and the reason why, why didn't anyone else tell the king he was naked or the emperor is naked? One, they might've loved their, yes. I think it was because it was wisdom, because you could see the clothes. Perfect. Yep, yep. Very good. Like almost a Gnostic thing, right? And so, I read too much into it, but I'm like, yeah, maybe no one wanted to lose their jobs. And sometimes I think about doctors today. Like they know what the truth is. They just go along with the game because they are more concerned about their reputation or their pension, right? And so we see that even in our own lives. 1 Thessalonians. I love Paul. One of the marks of a false teacher in the Old and the New Testament is actually flattery. Paul says, for our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit. But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. For we never came with a flattering word, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Nor seeking glory from men, either from you or from others." And I even see this. Christians are going to have to be very careful of even flattering, blatant sin. Right? I see this in a lot of pre-deconstruction Christian celebrities. Right? They almost flatter the gay community, right? And they say, oh, that's so noble and takes such courage. Where's the Christian who will stand up and say, the emperor, you're naked. Like it's, this is insane. This is not good. You are not being you. Now there's mercy and forgiveness. But this is an abomination before God. This is not how He intended it from the beginning. And we can almost flatter those who are living in just wanton, unrepentant sin. And that's the most unloving thing. Like, we believe in hell. We really do. And I think we're going to be tempted to almost sort of go along with a flattering culture. That is. What do you think about this government? Whether you're Republican or... Right, you flatter, but we just need to speak the truth in love. They're not doing a good job. They're crushing people. That's not politically expedient. You might get kicked out of university, fill in the blank. This is going to be a huge thing for us as Christians in the 21st century. I'm certain of it. Will we go with the flow and flatter lies, or will we stand up and say with Paul, we want to please God, not man. He examines the heart. And we didn't come flattering you. We didn't have greedy intentions. I love that. Nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Nor seeking glory from men. You want to receive glory from the world? Be a progressive church. Did anyone read about that last week? About they had like an end of life service in a United Church in Winnipeg last week? They killed somebody in a church service at the end. And you read the comments, and, oh, Jesus is so honored, and in this, and I want to just, and some people did stand up, and then you look at the responses to that. This is insane. Don't flatter somebody, don't flatter a woman pastor who shouldn't even be in the pulpit, and don't flatter her that she's doing something noble. You just facilitated murder. Anyways, I'll stop. Think of the woman in Proverbs 5, 6, and 7, I just quoted the one, for the lips of a strange woman drip honey. What? It doesn't say flattery. Okay, we know that honey's not coming out of her lips, right? This is Hebrew poetry. What's the honey coming out of her lips? I need you. Right, right? Smoother than oil is her speech. So she's saying all kinds of things because she wants money. Jeremiah 9, 8, speaking of false prophets, Jeremiah really picks up on this. The tongue is a slaughtering arrow. It speaks deceit. With his mouth, one speaks peace to his neighbor, but inwardly he sets an ambush for him. Rather than having flattery come from our speech, we want to have honest answers. I love that, like a kiss on the lips is the one who gives an honest answer, okay? Flattery hypes, but does not help. That's a nice little mnemonic thing for you. That's from Tremper Longman. Flattery hypes, but does not help, right? So Matt, you can't be Josh's hype man, unless you really think he's doing good. Lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh, but doers of faithful are his. Let's keep rocking. We got seven minutes. Exaggeration embellishment. And this can also be flattery too. But sometimes we can retell a story in a deceitful way. And sometimes, right, you have to be aware. Like sometimes if everyone knows you're using exaggeration, that's fine. But when someone thinks that what you're telling them is gospel truth, like the details that you're conveying to them, you know, are to be accurate, that can be deceit, can it not? I got like all 95s, like when I was in university. Did you? Like why are you saying that, Ryan? Maybe it's because I want you to think more highly of myself than I actually am. Or in a negative way. It's like, oh man, you've burnt like the last 10 meals. She burnt two. Or I burnt two. She doesn't. She doesn't. Careful, careful. Right, but that's, yes, go for it, Josh. What I've seen, I don't know what the definition is. I'm just gonna use an example. Sorry, Matt, you're in the crosshairs. We all need to pray for Matt Right? You're not praying for your brother. Well, you are praying for your brother. So it's supposed to be good. But without the right set of tact, you become gossip. And it all comes down again to the heart motive, right? I've seen that my mother sometimes calls it prayer and gossip time. When you share your prayer request, but you use your prayer request as gossip. Slander. Yeah, we have to be very careful, you know? And let's pray for such, because, you know, I really sense this. It's like, maybe, but are we exaggerating? Or are we embellishing? Okay, and sometimes we want to make ourselves look like the hero, or actually tear someone down, right? And that's deceit again. Or are you saying something that, you know, maybe Matt told you he has a struggle, you know, put it in some doubt. Yep. Now, hey, oh, we need to pray for Matt. Yeah. Oh, Matt didn't want me, Matt didn't want everybody praying about that. To know about it, yep. And that's the thing is that we can dress it up. There can be lots of gossip. We need to remember that this is something that does not honour the Lord. You know, and so yeah, you're right, Josh, we have to be very careful, because we can, right, again, we can dress it up, we can put a nice glaze on it, and it can sound pious and holy and loving, but is it deceitful? You know, and that's what I love about the Hebrew of that command. Oh, and I mean, I've done it with genuine concern for brothers, right? And then that's fine. I was thinking, right, we need to pray for so-and-so because of that, and then you're like, crap. Yeah. That was your borderline gossip, and then you kind of have to apologize, because you're doing it as, You're concerning what other people praying with, you know, if it wasn't your place. And that's where the Proverbs are always helpful about not only what to say, but even when to say it and how to say it. And Proverbs is actually a book I commend to all of us, which is actually, you'll notice a lot of the quotes that I'm bringing up from the scriptures are from Proverbs. And I remember reading in Juan Roberts' book, God's Big Picture, he has a very short section, right? So the Ten Commandments are just very specific absolutes, but then Proverbs really addresses, what do the Ten Commandments look like in day-to-day life? Right, because like, oh, don't bear false witness against your neighbor. Yes, it starts at the gate. The problem shows us it doesn't end at the gate. Okay, and so it includes things like, yeah, gossip and slander and flattery and exaggeration. Okay, and so here's just a little bit of an exhortation. Be careful about using statements like always. Right, you hear it about kids. You always do that, and if someone else hears that, Like, you never do the dishes. You always get angry. Okay, maybe I do, but if someone else hears that, they're like, man, Ryan's like a tea kettle, just always, this guy must be just like a grenade ready to explode at all times. I hope not, but it can appear that way, and therefore, in that moment, using the word always or never is actually a slander against my character, okay? Be careful about making mountains out of molehills. We'll keep going on, because we only have a couple of minutes. Half-truths. So I bought some stuff online. True. Right? Or, you know, there's some, yeah, I got some stuff at the store, and then you, like, hide the candy or something like that. Not saying that's ever happened. But we need to be truthfully honest. We need to make sure that we're not telling most truth, but all truth. You know, and that's what I love about Ephesians. It doesn't say speaking the truth in love. It's interesting. Paul, he loves to make up words. Literally, it's truthing in love. I just like that. Like, just be truthful. And then the words that come out, right? Speaking truth is part of being truthful, right? Or sometimes we'll leave out crucial facts. Kids, what happened? And what they can say is no word of lie. They can tell you what happened, but they'll omit. but they're acting deceitful there. You know, like, and by the way, like, you know, I broke the plate or by the way, you know, I threw my brother through the wall or something, right? No, like, so my parents would come home, there were four boys, we were unregenerate as can be, and we would just trash the house. And they would come home, we'd hear the garage go up, and then we'd set everything in. Oh, we played. Yeah, we were just playing a little bit. Or we played some football, but we didn't say we played football inside, right? Or we didn't say what the playing looked like, like we were like trashing the house, right? A half-truth is really a no-truth. It's actually quite deceitful. And that's what I love about Proverbs 18, 17. The first to plead his case seems right until another comes and examines him. That's why you go to the gates and you have hopefully the wise men of the town or the village helping to discern. Okay, I'm gonna quickly get through the last two. Jumping to conclusions, we already saw that, assuming the worst. And here's one I struggle with, you can pray for me. Right, so you're talking with pastor after the service and the kids are like, daddy, when are we going? Five minutes, 20 minutes later? That's deceit. And it might be good motives, but I need to, at that moment, either tell the person I need to be a man of my word, or tell my child I'm going to be probably 20 minutes. I just called on Ryan Idiot. He said it's five minutes. What was the first one? OK. I have a solution for you. Put an alarm on your phone for five minutes. And then in front of the person. Could do that. Or I just need to. Yeah, and just seek to be honest, and to be realistic. See, at that moment, maybe I'm trying to impress the person, and I'm giving them more time. But I'm teaching my kids that, you know, your word is not truth, and that you can actually say one thing, you can say yes, yes, and no, no at the same time, which is what they accused Paul of in 2 Corinthians. What about things like this? And I've tried to actually pray right at the moment. I'm not boasting, but I just, because I don't want to be a liar. You know, you see someone, and I'll be praying for you, Are we? Right, so we might be making ourselves look really good, but if you're not gonna, so I remember it was a couple weeks ago, and it's funny because someone was talking, and I didn't say, oh, I'm gonna be praying for your daughter, because I thought I might not, and the irony is that I did, but I didn't tell her, I'm learning. I didn't wanna say, oh, I'm gonna be praying for your daughter. Like, as a pastor, there's only so many things I can pray for. Next time you do that, you're gonna get a spank. So me and Abby, she needed stitches yesterday, so we're at the hospital, And you know, you just, the kid in front of us just always on the screen, don't let your kids be on screen all the time. And the mom is like, stop it. I'm gonna take that away from you. She didn't say spank, right? But she's threatening, she's threatening, she's threatening. The kid knows, he can play her like a video game. He knows mom don't mean what she says. I'm gonna count to three. Right, one, two, three. Two and a quarter? I mean it! Two and a half? Don't make me do that! Right? That's a rash promise, or a rash threat. Okay? You can read the notes after. I have manipulative prophesying. What's that? Yeah. No, that's... They all know, right? And then here's the solution. Go home, and whether it's Commandment 9 or Commandment 5 or 8, Putting off by putting on, right? So if this is full of poison, the best thing to do is, yes, pour the poison out, but replace it with something that is good. So put on, and then there's no room for all that other junk in there, okay? And that's Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4, right? Put on truth. I love the way Ephesians 4 says it, right after it says, since we are members one of another, right, there's the context of community, speak the truth. If I'm so busy speaking truth, I don't have time to be speaking lies. If I'm so busy building up, I don't have time to be tearing down. It's the same if you're struggling with lust or something. If you're so busy seeking Christ, you don't have time for that. Yes? So, Rahab, we... So Matt will deal with that next Sunday. Um, if you want, maybe after Matt's done, like I'll let you, I'll let you, he's doing the 10th commandment, maybe in two weeks from now we can deal with that. And it's not because I don't want to, it's just, it's because it's 1020 right now, and I did not make a promise that I would. So, maybe in two weeks we can deal with some of these a little more intricately, unless Matt needs two weeks. We'll play it by ear. Okay? Let me just close with James 3, 2, and then I'll pray. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man or woman, able to bridle the entire body as well. Father, I just ask that you would help us to be those who give life. I think of the Proverbs so often that you say that the speech of a wise man is like a tree of life. And I ask, Lord, that we would love our neighbor and seek to build them up and encourage. And Father, I pray that You would just help us to put to death a lot of these sins of the tongue which stem from a heart, Lord, that just needs to be made more like Christ, needs to be sanctified. Thank You for this day. Help us to honour You, Lord, in all that we say and all that we do we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.