But seek the Lord in prayer again. Father, we worship Thee, for Thou art the Lord. You are the faithful and the true. Thou art thrice holy. You are perfect in Your essence, in Your being, in Your attributes, in all that You are. You are God. You are perfect. You made us for Your glory. You have saved Your people for Your glory. You're doing all things to declare before all of Your creatures that You are a glorious God. Dear Lord, we're thankful for the Word that Thou hast given us. Your Word is truth. We're thankful that we have in our hands this morning Your inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, preserved, and translated word. We have no fear that there is some mistake in the text that we have. Thou hast promised to preserve your word to all generations. Thou hast promised that though heaven and earth will pass away, your word will not pass away. And we are convinced that we have the word of truth in our hands this morning. Now, O Lord, please bless the proclamation of that truth. Please help your servant as he stands to feed your people. Please help us to be good hearers of your word. Instruct us in our hearts and our souls. Build us up in our faith. Have dealings with the unconverted. Please draw them savingly to yourself. Dear Lord, I pray for all of my brethren who are preaching at this hour. Please bless the gatherings of your people everywhere. Please bless our brethren in the eastern hemisphere where the evening has come and the Lord's day is ending. Please, Holy Spirit, add your blessing to the word that's been declared this day already to the east of us. To the brethren that are to the west of us, we commend them to your loving kindness and favor and pray that you bless them. It is with much delight as we arise on the Lord's Day, thinking of how that as the sun continues its westward trek, your people are rising with joyful hearts and raising their hands to thee, coming to your house with joyful spirits. We pray for our brethren who have to meet in hiding. We pray for the house churches in Red China. We pray, Father, for the gatherings of your people where if they're discovered, they could be put in jail or put to death. I pray, Father, that you would restrain those that would persecute your people. We pray, Father, that you would overthrow the evil that is in men's hearts in such a way that your people could live quietly and peaceably in all godliness and their worship would not be overthrown or their families interrupted. Please, dear Lord, have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon your church in this land. Please have mercy on your professing church. Please send down a great revival in our day as our prayer. Please send a great spiritual awakening here in America. Please send down a great spiritual awakening here in Mississippi and in Simpson County. Oh, Lord, please do a powerful work before our eyes. Please give us grace to be faithful in the time and place in which thou hast put us. Now, dear Lord, honor your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Deuteronomy 32 and verse 4, we find these words. He is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment, a God of truth. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. Our message this morning is the truthfulness of God as we continue our Doctrine of God series. I've chosen my title intentionally. I will give you a synonym for the doctrine that we're setting forth. There's another word that we don't use as often in our day, veracity. We could say the veracity of God. You will find that word sometimes when you consult men who have written on the attributes of God, you find them speaking of this truth under the title of the veracity of God. But I've chosen the title, the truthfulness of God, which is a synonym for the veracity of God. God is declared in our text to be a God of truth, a God of absolute truth, a God of essential truth, a God in whom there is nothing but truth, a God with whom truth is so much a part of his perfections that it is impossible for him to lie. He's called a God of truth. I trust this series on the doctrines of God. I trust that these messages are provoking us to admire our great God. I trust that we're being provoked to revere our great God. I trust we're being provoked to love our great God. And I trust that we are being provoked to worship our great God. I trust we are being provoked to seek that God and salvation through Him. I trust that this series of messages on the doctrine of God is not just some intellectual pursuit, but I trust it is a spiritual exercise in which our minds and hearts and souls are being exercised to a high and lofty esteem of the God of the Bible. That we might love Him as we ought, that we might love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that we might worship Him in spirit and in truth, that we might reverence Him for he is holy, and his name is holy and reverend, and that we might come to have much all respect and admiration for the God of the Bible who is perfect in all of his ways. And we would say that the truthfulness of God should be as much reason to provoke this admiration, reverence, respect, love, and worship as any of God's attributes. When we think of the fact that God is a God of truth, that you could sum up His holy character by saying that He is a God who is the God of truth. This is one of the ways that we can simply say that God is God, for there's no other being in the universe for all other beings are created by Him, there's no others that can say that they are beings of truth in the way that God is. To say that God is perfect is to say that He is a God of truth. It simply declares His Godhood and His Godhood to say that God is a God of truth. It's just not a wonderful thing about our God today to think that He is a God of nothing but truth, that there's no Nothing of falsity in him, nothing in him but truth. His ways are truth completely and absolutely. He is a God of truth. Now, my first head this morning that we wish to develop is to set forth that God is essentially true. It is of the essence of God. When we say that God is essentially true, this is a way of saying that God has to be true. I was talking to Brother Cary on the phone last night, and he was mentioning a man that he had recently heard preach, who in his sermon said something about something that God can't do. And Brother Cary thought the way it was put, it was somewhat trite, the way the man put it. But we will say this, and as we look at God as being a God of truth, what I want you to think about is this, that there are things that God has to be in order to be God. God won't quit being God. Can I put it that way? And His truth is part of that. God, because He is thrice holy, and because He's perfect, We've already looked at His holiness and His goodness, His justice, His long-suffering, some of these things. We've looked at His immutability and His sovereignty. All of these things are essential to His Godhood, and so it is with His truth. It is essential to Him as God. He would not be God if He were not a God of truth, if we could say it that way. And a little later on, we're going to look at some verses here. which is stated in the negative, but Jeremiah 10.10 states it very positively this way, that the Lord God is the true God. He is the true God. Of course Jeremiah wrote that in a day when polytheism was abounding all around Israel in which the Israelites were often going astray in worshipping these false gods and worshipping in their groves and setting up these faults. altars, setting up worship of false gods like Baal, and Molech, and Chemosh, and all these different gods of the nations around them. Jeremiah states this positively in light of the fact that he's preaching to people who are prone to idolatry, who are being tempted to idolatry, and in Jeremiah's day were giving over to it wholesale, and he simply says, the Lord God is the true God. Baal is not a God of truth. None of these other false gods that you are going and leaving Jehovah to worship, none of them, it can be said of them, that they are gods of absolute truth, only of God. But it's stated negatively in wonderful ways in the Scriptures. God is so essentially true that He cannot lie. And so whenever we start talking about things that God can't do, it would be well if we limit such expressions of what the Scriptures say. This is one of the things the Scriptures say that God cannot do. God cannot lie. Why? Because to lie would mean that He would not be God anymore. And God won't quit being God. And I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that God will always be God unchangeably. He will always stay on His throne. He will not give His glory to another. and he will maintain his Godhood. Titus 1.2 says in the negative, God that cannot lie. And in Hebrews 6.13 it's stated negatively also in which it was impossible for God to lie. It would be impossible for God to tell anything of a falsehood for to do so would mean to relinquish his Godhood and to quit being God which he won't do and we say it reverentially and we say it fearfully, and we say it with awe and worshipfully, but God can't quit being God. He will continue to be God forever and ever. Now, God must be essentially true, and He cannot lie because God has nothing to cover up. Why is it that men lie or shade the truth? Why is it that fallen sinners depart from the truth and either doctor up the truth or covered up or completely twisted around. Why is it? Because they have things to cover up. They have things that they don't want others to know about them. They have things about them that if it were known, it would get them in trouble. It might, some people, certain things were known about them, it might mean that they would go to the penitentiary. Others of us, There are things that we have covered up in the past because if it got out on us, it would be a great embarrassment to us. And men have things that they would like to cover up, but God has nothing that he wants to cover up. He's perfect, and He wants everybody to know what a glorious God He is, and the fact that He's a God of truth, and that He cannot lie, and there's no darkness in Him. It's just a way of saying that God is nothing but perfection, and everything that you find out about Him are things that you ought to delight in. Everything that you discover about God are things that ought to cause you much joy and appreciation of the great God. He has nothing to hide or to cover up. His perfections allow a full revelation of Himself. His perfection in all of His ways allow a full disclosure of everything about Himself. God is not afraid that we'll find out something about Him that will be less than perfect. For everything about Him is perfectly holy, perfectly good, perfectly right. Our God is essentially true. He is essential truth. He is essentially true. He cannot lie. And He's perfect in all of His ways. He won't quit being God. And in His essential veracity, His essential truthfulness, I want us to consider that God is true in His triunity, for the Scriptures speak of the three persons of the God He had as being of truth. For instance, James 1.17 speaks of God the Father this way. He's called the Father of Lights. That's a way of stating the truthfulness of God. To say that God is the Father of Lights, is to say that he doesn't have to shroud himself in some kind of covering. He can reveal himself. He's a God of truth. To say that he's a God of lights is to say that he's a God of truthfulness and a God of veracity. God the Father is said to be essentially the Father of truth. And the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Son is spoken of as being essentially truth. You remember how Jesus says it in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Much we could say about that verse as far as Christ being the only way of salvation, but the part that we want to see this morning for our purposes today is to see that our Lord Jesus Christ personifies Himself as the truth. The same kind of essential quality as is in God the Father. It's a way that Jesus is telling us that He's God. All these kind of expressions that when Jesus takes for himself some attribute of God, he's telling us that he is God. He's telling us that he's not some created being, but he is God. Jesus says that I'm not just a truthful man. But he's saying, I am truth. I'm personified in truth. I'm essentially truth, just as God the Father. What you see in my Father, you see in me. He's an express image of the Father. And since the Father is the Lord, who's the true God, so it is with the Lord Jesus Christ. The same truth is spoken of the Holy Spirit. For instance, in John 16.13, the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit of Truth, the One who has inspired the Word of Truth, the One who enlightens us in truth, who leads us into truth, the Holy Spirit is said to be essentially true. So God is true essentially in His tri-unity. Now, as we consider the essence of God in His truth, I want us to note that the truthfulness of God sets him apart from all fallen creatures. The truthfulness of God sets him apart from all fallen creatures. In John chapter 8, in verse 44, the Lord Jesus speaks of the devil and says there is no truth in him. The devil is said to be completely opposite of God in that way, that there is no truth in him. It's not that the devil is part truth and part falsehood, but Jesus says there's no truth in him. God is the opposite of this fallen angel, the devil, this one that God himself created, this one who's not some competing deity. but this one who is the devil, a murderer from the beginning, and the one in whom there is no truth in him." The devil started out lying. He started out lying to himself when he said, I will be like the Most High. He started out lying to our Mother Eve and said to her, you will be as gods. and begin to pervert the word of truth. The devil is still perverting the word of truth. And the devil's ways of perverting the truth is still similar to the way he did it with Eve. He doesn't just always come out and just call the Bible a lie, but he quite frequently casts doubt upon portions of God's Word, or certain words in God's Word, and puts doubts in people's minds. Be sure that if someone is ever trying to tell you something about God's Word that they're claiming is not true, be sure it's of the devil and not of the Lord. Because he is a liar. There's no truth in him. And God sets him apart from fallen men in the same way, in Romans 3, 4, when he says, let God be true and every man a liar. That is, that even the most truthful of men, saved by grace, or affected by parental upbringing, or restrained by law, even men who, compared to their fellows, would be called truthful men, God still says in comparison to me, let every man be counted a liar. Check everything that every man says by my word. Count none as being absolutely and essentially true but me. Let God be true and every man a liar. And we will also note this morning that God's essential truth, God's essential nature as being a God of truth, causes him to hate every false thing. Since he is a God of absolute essential truth, it is of him that he must be opposed to everything that is false. Proverbs 6.17, among those seven things that God hates, one of them is what? A lying tongue. The six things that God hates, yea seven abomination to him, and one of them is a lying tongue. God hates lying. When we think of the fact that God hates lying, it should provoke us to be people of truth. It should provoke us to be careful with the truth, since God has said He hates a lying tongue. In fact, the Bible tells us in Revelation 21.8 that all liars shall be turned into a lake of fire, shall be cast into the lake of fire. All liars shall be cast into the lake of fire. What an awful indictment that is of men who are careless with the truth, of those who pervert the truth, and those who lie and make up things upon their fellows, and lie to save their skin, and lie to promote their ways, and lie to get wealth, and lie for every kind of ungodly reason. God hates the lying tongue. We as professing Christians, we ought to always be pursuing truthfulness and endeavoring to be speaking the truth. Our God hates a lying tongue. God is essentially true. He is truth Himself, and He hates every false thing. And will finally cast liars into the lake of fire. That liar of liars, the devil, and all who follow him must be cast into the lake of fire. Now secondly this morning, this will be our second head, I want us to consider for a little while that the truthfulness of God is our salvation. The truthfulness of God is our salvation. In Titus 1.2 Paul writes and says, In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. That tells us that our salvation has its beginning in the truthfulness of God, the God who has made a promise. And we would say that since this is a promise that was made before the world began, this was a promise that He made to Himself, with Himself, and of Himself. Our salvation has its roots in that covenant-keeping God who has promised salvation who as Father gave a people to his Son, who as Son committed for the redemption of those people, and who as the Holy Spirit committed for the calling and the regeneration and conversion of all those for whom the Son would die. And all that's based on eternal promise, a promise that God made with Himself. Before we knew about the promise, the promise was there. That promise was recorded in heaven, that promise was written in God's book of His decrees, and salvation is based in the truthfulness of God. The fact that God is a truthful God means that those who trust in His Son will be saved. God, the God of truth, made this promise of salvation before the world began. And it's a promise that He won't go back on, a promise that we say reverentially, a promise that He cannot go back on. Our God, the God of truth, has promised this salvation in all eternity and promised it before the world began. The truthfulness of God is seen in our salvation, in our Redeemer, who is personified truth, as Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto me, and no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Jesus says the only way that you come to salvation, the only way that you can come to God the Father, is through me, the mediator, who is the truth. The truthfulness of God is seen in His Son, who is the way of salvation and the only way of salvation. I point you to the Lord Jesus Christ again this morning as we proclaim the truthfulness of God. I point you to the One who says, I am the way, not one of several ways, the truth, not one of some somebody's idea of truth, but that one who is the truth, and that one who is the life, the way, the truth, the life, the Lord Jesus Christ. You come to God through Him, and there's salvation in that way. And that's the only way, through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ prays in John 17, 17. He prays to the Father, praying for His people. I listened to the CDs of Brother Peterson's messages from John 17. They were a great encouragement and blessing to me. I know they were to you as you heard them live, but he brought in this verse some in his preaching Sunday before last. And is Jesus there as the high priest of his people entering into the true holiest of all? interceding for his people and praying for our salvation, he prays in the 17th verse of John 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Lord Jesus Christ prays that the elect of God will be set apart for God's holy use. That they'll be perfected in holiness. And that through the word of truth, the scriptures, that we would be made a holy people through His sign and through the truth that He has given. Salvation comes to us through the truth. And sanctification comes to us through the Word of Truth. God uses the Word of His Truth in the sanctification of His people. The truthfulness of God the Father, the truthfulness of God the Son, and the truthfulness of God the Holy Spirit is bound up in our salvation. And we have salvation because of the veracity of God and because He is a God of Truth. Now, thirdly this morning, I want us to consider that since God is perfectly truthful, we must of necessity be people of truth. Since the God we worship, the God in whose image we have been made, and the God who saved us and has restored us to that image, we must of necessity be people of truth. The Lord Jesus tells us in John 8.32 that truth must be a constant pursuit. Jesus says, you shall know the truth. and the truth shall make you free. The Lord Jesus has told us that we are not to just be indifferent about the truth or to have the idea that truth is somehow relative. The scriptures never speak of truth in that way. The Lord Jesus says that truth is something that you can know. There is such a thing as absolute truth. The Lord Jesus said that since God is essentially true, and since He cannot lie, and since He's given us a word of truth, and saving us through that truth, sanctifying us through that truth, those things tell us that there is such a thing as absolute truth. The idea that truth is relative. The idea that truth is relative to the generation in which a person lives. And this is what people of our day believe today, that, well, you know, there was things that people believed 200 years ago that was relevant for that time. But we live in a more modern and enlightened age now, and what was true 200 years ago was not necessarily true anymore. The idea that truth is relative. Well, Jesus said, you shall know the truth. The truth that he said that we should know, 2,000 years ago was still absolute truth. Then there are those that say that truth is relevant for whatever culture you live in. There are those that have the idea that there's one truth that's relative for America, and another truth that's relative for Africa, and another truth that's relative for Saudi Arabia. No, my friends. The truth is the truth. Everywhere on God's earth, and everywhere that people are made in His image, and that's everybody, in every generation, in every time, and in every place, the truth is absolute. There's no relativity with truth. Keep that in mind when you're reading some of the modern day writers, even some men that we would consider good men comparatively speaking, even some of the modern day preachers of today. Sometimes they'll write things in such a way as to make you think that we live in a much more enlightened age and that we have a different set of truth than people had 150 years ago. That is not true. God's truth is not relative. The Proverbs, in Proverbs 23, 23 tells us, buy the truth and sell it not. That tells us that truth is a precious commodity. It tells us something that we are to give diligence in knowing it. Buy the truth. Expend labor, expend effort, give up whatever you have to, to have the truth. Buy the truth. Consider it to be the most precious of commodities. This past week, the markets fell out of the commodities. Oil prices went down. Grain prices went down. All the commodity markets went down. There's one commodity that didn't go down. Truth. Truth is the most precious of commodities and its value will never go down. It is the highest value of everything. We're told to buy the truth and we're told to sell it not. I grieve sometimes when I see those who have professed to walk in the way of truth giving it up so easy for false ways and compromising the truth as if it were not such a precious thing. Brothers and sisters, let me exhort you here in this place. Let us continue in the truth that God has shown us. We have bought the truth here. There are things that have been precious to us, that were part of our beginning and coming together, the founding of this church. Let us never consider those things as having somehow now become invaluable. The truth of God, and the doctrine of God, and the doctrines of grace, and the practical outworkings of the gospel, let all of these truths be counted precious to us. And let us not sell them for anything. Let us buy the truth considering it to be a precious commodity because truth is wrapped up in the truthfulness of God. There is absolute truth because God is absolute. And so let us not consider truth as being something relative or something that can be expended with. No, no. We must be people of truth. And since God is the God of truth, we must seek to worship God in truth. Jesus says in John 4, 24, they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. It's grievous that we live in a generation in which the professing church of the Lord Jesus Christ is not that interested in truth. The order of the day, And most of the professing church here in our part of the world is nothing but fun and games, psychology, entertainment, everything but emphasizing the truth of our great God. This must not be. It may never enter into our minds, for we must worship God in truth. The false statement that's been made in our generation. Doctrine divides. And so people say, just do away with all doctrine. I never will forget, 10 or 15 years ago, some preachers in this county got it up to having a local evangelistic crusade. And the advertisement they ran in the paper said something like this, This crusade will be just for saving souls. There will be no doctrine preached. Well, you know, I thought about that and I said, well, I thought to myself, no doctrine is going to be preached. You mean men are not going to be confronted with the truth that they're sinners? That's doctrine. You tell men that they're sinners, that they're lost. And how have they got to be sinners? God made us in His image. Well, that comes to creation. That's a doctrine. And what about the truth of the Bible itself? What about the doctrine of Scripture? Is there going to be some basis of absolute truth as men are called to Christ, and as men are invited to come to Christ, and as there is this evangelistic crusade? No. Doctrine must undergird all preaching. It must be a part of evangelistic preaching. Doctrine does divide. Doctrine divides the true from the false. It separates the precious from the vile. It separates the saints from the sinners. Doctrine does divide, but our Lord Jesus Christ was not bashful to preach doctrine because it divided. There is no aspect of truth where it be evangelistic, or whether it be the building up of the faith that must not be undergirded by truth. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. God is absolutely truthful. He's essentially truthful, and He must be worshipped in truth. And so this idea that in the church today we just water everything down to The lowest common denominator, which has gotten down to the fact that what's preached in most churches today is, if you won't say anything about my sins, I won't say anything about yours. And something about some nebulous God that some kind old grandfather that wouldn't hurt a flea, and some Jesus that hadn't got enough power to save a flea. No. God is a God of truth, and He must be worshipped in truth. That's what we're endeavoring to do in this place, and may it always be that we'll be worshiping our God in spirit. You can't worship the Lord without His Holy Spirit. You can't worship the God of the Bible without being regenerated and made a new creature by His Holy Spirit. And that continual worship of God's people must be facilitated by the continual help of the Holy Spirit, with the Spirit and truth. The Spirit of God and the truth of God. And you can't call sinners to Christ without preaching the truth. There must be the truth that we have a standard we go by. The reason we have an evangelistic message is because we have a book here of absolute truth that's not relative. We call men to Christ because this book says all of sin becomes short of the glory of God. We call men to Christ because this book says that there's a great day of judgment coming. in which we must meet this God, who is the God of truth. This book declares that God has made a remedy for our sinners in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. You worship God in truth and you call sinners to Christ by preaching the truth, not by getting up and saying, well, I'm okay, you're okay. Not by getting up and saying, well, what was true 200 years ago has changed. Truth is absolute. It is not relevant. God is not changing. He is immutable. He is fixed and perfect. He is perfect in all of His ways, including His truth. But I will point this out also this morning, that since God is a God of truth, and we must necessarily be people of truth, we must order His church on truth. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3.15, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Again, this idea that the modern professing church has today, that it doesn't matter what you believe. This is the reason that I would say the vast majority of churches, they either don't have a confession of faith, or if they have one, it's in some archives locked away that nobody has read it. And a few people even, I know of a couple of churches down in southwest Mississippi, I never will forget back, I think it was in the early 90s, I used to preach down in southwest Mississippi a good bit, down at Middleton Creek and Mount Gilead, those churches down in there. There was a Southern Baptist church down, I think it's in Amiette County, that was founded on the same articles of faith as the churches I was preaching in down there. And during this period of time, I had moved to Tennessee, but Brother Chad Tony, I don't know if y'all ever met him or not, but he was good friends with some folks down at this other church down in Abett County. They were without a pastor. And somehow or another he got my name in the mix that I'd be a good one of y'all to come preach for them. And so one of the deacons of the church called me. I knew enough of the history of the church and one of the early churches founded in Mississippi. I knew the Articles of Faith they were founded on. This deacon called me and wanted to know would I come and preach. I said I would. And started kind of making some plans for that. Well about a week later he called back and said, I talked to folks and they don't want you to come. So I've had some experiences like that. But this particular church I'm talking about, if I'd have gone and preached articles of faith that they were founded upon, and that's the reason I was invited, not the invitation was dropped because of that. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the pillar and ground of the truth. And so the idea that churches have today that truth is not important, or the truth has changed, or the truth that people believed 200 years ago is not relevant anymore, and this is what you'll hear from some so-called conservatives today. That may have been what people believed 200 years ago, but there are other important issues that have to be dealt with today, and so these things put on the back burner. No, no. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, and the truth that Christ and the apostles preached, and the truth of the New Testament, the truth of the Bible, and the truth that the true church has held to down through the centuries is still the truth today. Those who depart from the truth can't say they're the pillar and ground of the truth. But then I would say, as people who must necessarily be of truth, since God is a God of truth, we must preach the truth. We must be in constant pursuit of the truth. We must count truth as a precious commodity. We must worship God in truth. We must order His church on truth and we must preach the truth. You know we're Christians today because we believe the truth. Salvation has come to us through the truth of God. Paul says in Ephesians 1.13, in whom, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Paul says to the brethren at the church at Ephesus, you trusted in Christ after you heard the word of truth. That word of truth which is the gospel, that's how you became Christians. Now if we're Christians today, it's because God sent his truth to us. We may have heard a man preach the truth and show us that we needed Christ. We may have read it in the Bible for ourselves. We may have read a sermon, all sorts of ways that God gets the truth to his people, but people are not saved without a presentation of the truth. People are not saved in some vacuum where they don't know what happened to them. But people are saved by a presentation of the truth, being confronted with the truth, and coming to believe that truth by the power of the Holy Spirit. So Paul would write in 2 Thessalonians 2.13, we're bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren and beloved of the Lord, because God from the beginning, from the beginning, that's election, God's sovereignty, God that cannot lie promised eternal life before the world began, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. I love 2 Thessalonians 2.13. In 2 Thessalonians 2.13-14, Two of the grand truths of the Bible come together in a wonderful way there. The sovereignty of God and salvation. God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Nobody is saved apart from the sovereign choice of God. But God who is sovereign, who is absolutely sovereign, He works through His appointed means. God predestinates the end and He predestinates the means. And they are brought together wonderfully in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 13. He chose you to salvation from the beginning. But it was through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. My beloved, the truth is important. It's essential. It's essential in the evangelizing of the unconverted. Because God has ordained the means of the preaching of His Word, the preaching of His Gospel, the preaching of truth, the preaching of His Son who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He has ordained that He would call His people to salvation through the preaching of the truth and through the belief of that truth. Our God is the God of truth. He is essentially true. He is unchangeably true. He is perfectly true. He has to be true because He's God. With Him, it's impossible to lie. With Him, it's impossible to change. He has no need to change. He has no need to cover up. He's called us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. May the Lord bless us to worship Him as we ought because He is the God of truth. And may the Lord bless us to believe His truth. Let's look to the Lord and be dismissed. Father, we're thankful for your Word today, and we worship Thee and praise Thee, for You are the God of truth. You are the Lord in whom there is no shadow of turning. Thou art the Father of lights. The Scriptures say that You cannot lie. And now, dear Lord, I pray that as I have tried to preach the truth about You, that You are God of truth and to show your people the necessity of believing the truth. Please cause these things to resonate in our hearts. Please build up your people in their faith. Please encourage your sheep, and I pray that they will be fed this morning through the preaching of your gospel. Please have mercy upon the unconverted and draw them savingly to yourself through the Lord Jesus Christ. Please bless us in our fellowship hour. Please bless us in the afternoon service. Please forgive us for our sins. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We'll be dismissed for a little while.