Last Lessons #35 - LIES

“Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of men. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?’”  Psalm 12:1-4

In today’s world it seems that we cannot trust anyone to tell the truth.   Everybody lies.  I lie and you lie but not as much as our politicians lie.  Even our President lies.  We cannot even trust “fact-checkers”!  It does seem that all the faithful have vanished and everyone lies to his neighbor as Psalm 12 says.  But that is not the whole story.  Psalm 12 goes on in verse 6 to state:

  

“The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.”  Psalm 12:6

I have learned that there is one place where there are no lies.  That one place is the Bible.   I also know that there have been, and still are, some men and women who are faithful in standing for the truth of the Bible and who are willing to state it in writing.

By the grace of God, my husband and I were privileged to be a part of the ICBI.   

The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) was founded in 1977 to clarify and defend the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.  You can google ICBI to find out more, including the names of those of us who signed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978.  Here is the “Short Statement” of what we signed.  

1. God who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge.  Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as Cod’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less to what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

The truth is available in the Scriptures and we thank God for those who have stood for it through the years.  We thank God for those who are still standing for truth today.   The reason people, especially our political leaders, lie and therefore damage our country is because they do not know the truth because they do not read the Bible.   

“But Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.’”  Matthew 22:29

What does that say to us?

READ THE SCRIPTURES.  And earnestly pray that our leaders will read the Bible so that they know what is right and what is wrong.  

And please DO NOT LIE!