The Truthfulness of God

We come to the truthfulness of God.

And as we think about God being true or He is truthful, which is rooted in the fact that He exists, that He is true, it reminds us of the fact that we're living in a time, and this may not be unique to our time, but it's definitely present in our time that it's hard to trust anything.

It's hard to trust people.

It's hard to trust the media, trust science anymore.

I mean, it's hard to trust Mr. Science.

Politicians, it's hard to trust them.

It's hard to trust just about universities.

Everywhere there should be truth.

You know, where truth needs to be established.

There's not truth in science, then science is worthless.

And it's not that science is bad, but what about the scientists?

Do you trust the scientists?

The media should be a pillar of truth, the media.

They should exist to hold politicians to an account.

They should exist to report truth, reality, facts.

But who do we trust anymore?

And I think the reason it's hard to trust people, the Bible tells us in the Psalms that all men or liars were come out of the womb speaking lies.

So there's something inherently broken in the human race that makes men deceptive.

And they'll speak lies or deception in order to get an advantage or to hide the truth for their own personal gain.

So it's hard to trust things.

It's hard to even trust.

Sometimes it's hard to trust the pulpit.

Churches around the world are no longer even preaching the word of God.

So how do we trust in a day where truth is despised?

In fact, I would say people hate the truth.

And people hate the truth because they hate God.

They hate God because God is a binding element.

By the very nature of God exists, then I'm accountable.

I'm accountable to a fits, a boundary.

Two plus two is four.

It doesn't matter how I feel about it.

It doesn't matter what I think.

It's true.

And I have to submit my life to reality, to what is true.

I think that's why people can't even define what a woman is anymore.

What is a woman?

And we know what a woman is, but now even in universities, they won't define a woman because if you define-- once you define a woman, you're bound to that definition.

You have to submit yourself to the reality of that definition.

And so I think men hate God.

Therefore, they hate the truth.

They hate boundaries.

They hate restrictions.

They want to be free.

And their idea of free is to be able to do what they want to do, and they create truth for themselves.

This is the postmodern world that we live in, that we have our own truth.

Postmodernism is the idea that there's no fixed reality.

There's no anchor point for reality.

There's no truth that is rooted in something eternal.

And if there's no eternal reality, if there's no God, there's no truth, and everything's in flux, everything's in movement, everything is progressive.

This is idea in philosophy that truth is always becoming, that you have a proposition, and that proposition is countered by antithesis, and then you draw a conclusion, and that new conclusion becomes the beginning of another process of always learning, if you would, but never coming to any knowledge or any truth.

This is the way the world.

And people hate the truth, I think.

They hate anywhere there is truth that people resist it, especially the truth of God.

And this is because they follow their father, who is Satan, and John A. 44, Jesus says this about the Pharisees, he says,"You are your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires." He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

So here is the root source of all lies and deceptions.

It is like Satan cannot even tell the truth.

He does not know how to tell the truth, because Jesus says there is no truth in him.

He is a deception, he is a liar, he is a deceiver.

And the Lord went on to say about the scribes of Pharisees,"You are doing what your father has done. You are a liar too." Psalm 116.11 says, "All men are liars." Who here hasn't lied?

I mean, we may not have murdered someone, at least outwardly.

We may have hated someone in our heart, which Jesus says is essentially murder.

But none of us can say we have never lied, or we have never told a story that is not true, or exaggerated the truth for our own profit, or held back the truth when it was needed.

We are all guilty of lying.

The problem is, if you are caught in one lie, it wrecks your credibility.

If God lied one time, could you trust him in any of the other statements he made?

If there was one lie in God, like he made one mistake, if he was misspoken in one area and deceived us in one little small area, and we found out that that was a lie, could we trust God in anything he said?

Well, we are going to look at how God never lies.

He cannot lie, how He is always true. He is the source of truth.

That is His very nature.

As the very nature of Satan is a liar or deceiver, the very nature and the essence of our God is a God who is true.

He is true to Himself.

He exists eternally, and all that He says is true.

He cannot. He is impossible for God to lie.

So as we look at the truthfulness of God, let's see where this truthfulness is rooted.

It is rooted in His nature, His essence.

The difference between God and us, we have attributes that we may or may not have, but we still exist independent of these characteristics or attributes.

We have fruits of the Spirit, but if we are lacking the fruit of the Spirit, we still exist.

I can be Jep Johnson and tell the truth, but I am still Jep Johnson if I lie.

But that cannot be said about God.

If God ever lied, He is no longer God, or He never was God.

He cannot be God and be a liar.

You can be who you are and lie and still keep your existence.

This is why the Bible says God doesn't just have love.

God doesn't possess love. He obtained love.

We may be loving, we may be unloving, but God doesn't have that attribute in the sense that He acquired it or obtained it or grew into it.

No, He is love. That's what John tells us.

First John says God is love. That's who He is. That's His nature.

I mean, who are you?

You know, your bones and ligaments and muscles and tissues, and you are who you are, but what you are is not love.

You may have love, and that love comes from God.

But if you have love, that's derived from God.

That's a gift from God that He's given you.

He's put it as a fruit of God working in you.

But God doesn't obtain love or any other attribute that He has or that He is because He is who He is.

This is why the Bible says I am Jesus says I am who I am.

God said that to Moses. I am these things. I am truth.

Jesus says I am truth. I don't just have truth. I am truth.

Charles Burgess says God is true. He is true in His very nature.

There is no deceit, falsehood, or error in the essential nature of God.

Now, why is God true? Why is God truthful? Why is God faithful?

Because of all the other attributes of God.

That is, God is true because God is perfect.

He is true because He is holy.

If God wasn't holy, He wouldn't be true.

And if God had some error, falsehood, or spoke any deceit, He would cease to be holy. He would cease to be perfect.

Because He's the perfect being, He is a being without error, without mistakes, without faultiness.

Thus He cannot lie, you see.

He's true because He is a God of love. He is loving.

And therefore He cannot be anything other than love.

He can never cease to love. He can never not love.

However action and thing He does is motivated out of love in a demonstration and display of His love.

And thus He cannot lie. That's an amazing thing.

Also God cannot lie. He's truthful because God is all-knowing.

I mean, you make mistakes and I make mistakes.

Sometimes it's just an error, not intentional, but it's because we just didn't know the facts.

We're mistaken about things out of ignorance.

It's not intentional, but just of our ignorance, we say things that are not true all the time sometimes.

We misspeak. And we just don't know everything.

In fact, our knowledge is so limited.

But God cannot err or make a mistake because He is all-knowing.

And He is all-knowing because God is sovereign.

He's not learning. He's not looking down through history.

"Oh, that's what this person is going to do," or "that person is going to do this. Now I know what they're going to do.

Then I'll do this." That's putting some knowledge that is required in God, and no one is His Teacher who has instructed the one who knows all things.

God can't learn, so He can't be mistaken in anything He thinks.

He's the author of all of history, and He's known all that He's going to do from all eternity past because He's sovereign. He cannot forget.

This is because God is immutable.

And we've gone through these attributes week after week, but I want you to see how all these attributes are interconnected.

If one attribute goes, all the other attributes fall with that one attribute.

If God is lying, all the other attributes fall apart because He's immutable. He doesn't change.

He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

James 1, 17 says, "Ever good gift, never perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lots, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." So God is not fluctuating. He's not developing.

He's not becoming better.

If He's coming better, that means He wasn't perfect to begin with.

But He's always perfect from eternity past, so there's no improvement. There's no development.

There's no maturity in God.

He is unchangeable. He's perfected from the beginning.

Numbers 23, 19, "God is not a man that He should lie, nor the Son of Man that He should change His mind." You and I make commitments, then a couple days later, we're like, "Oh, man, why did I do that?

I wish I was free from that obligation." Oh, I see if I can get out of that.

Have you ever tried to get out of something committed to?

One time I foolishly, with my roommate, well, actually I can tell you all kinds of stories, but one time I almost bought me a brand-new Mustang as a freshman in college, and I had no money.

But amazingly, I don't know if you know this, but the dealership doesn't care you don't have money.

Our credit, they'll sell you something.

They had the paperwork in front of me before I knew what I was doing, and I'm like,"What am I doing? What am I doing? I can't afford this Mustang.

I like it, but I can't afford it." Thankfully, I didn't sign the paperwork, but I changed my mind at the last second.

Because I was a silly college student, I guess.

But God doesn't have those episodes.

He never gets into a situation like,"What was I thinking? I made a mistake here." Or makes a promise and goes,"No, I don't want to fulfill that one." He cannot change his mind.

He never does so.

Psalm 110 verse 4, "The Lord has sworn, and He will not change His mind." We'll get into the application in a minute, but this is amazing.

Psalms 110:4

You can't have this in any other arena.

You don't have this with man.

You don't have this with politicians that make all these empty promises.

You don't even have this with your parents that truly want to keep their word.

You don't have it in any other area.

You don't even have it necessarily altogether in the church because we make mistakes.

When we look to man, we're going to find that man fells us.

We fell ourselves, but not God.

You see, God doesn't possess these attributes.

He is these attributes.

That's the difference between God and man, the creator from the creature distinction.

He says, "I am what I am." Again, we exist if we're loving or not.

God cannot exist if He's not loving.

We exist if we're ignorant or smart or ignorant or knowledgeable.

The more knowledge we attain, it doesn't necessarily make us a different person.

But God, He doesn't just have knowledge.

He is that.

His knowledge is omnipotent.

It is omniscient.

He knows all things.

He knows everything.

And that's not just something He has.

That's something that He is.

See, we're not our love.

We're not our knowledge.

We're not the source of these things.

But God is the very source of who He is.

We talked about that on the essayative God.

He's the only one who's the source of His own existence.

And He acquires it not from some other source.

If He had to require it somewhere else or learn something, obtain something, or get love, then that thing He would be dependent upon.

He would be dependent upon something other than Himself.

But God's completely independent.

He exists without needing anything other than Himself.

So He has everything He needs in perfection because He is these things in and of Himself, from all eternity.

He's the source of Himself.

He's the eternal source of His own existence.

And that's an amazing concept to think about.

That means He doesn't love, because if He would decide to love, He cannot help but love.

He can't be anything other than Himself.

He has to love.

It doesn't mean He doesn't hate, but even His hate is motivated out of His love for His glory.

The Father's upset with sinners because He loves His Son.

And that's what love does.

Love is angry with anything that's going to oppose that which He loves.

He loves His Son, so He hates those who sin against His Son.

So He cannot not love.

Even His hatred is a manifestation of His deep, deep love.

Again, He cannot be anything other than what He is.

And therefore, there are some things God cannot do.

If God is who He is, there are some things that God cannot do.

Well, can God create a rock that He cannot pick up?

Which is a silly question, but the answer is no.

If God could do some things, then He wouldn't be God.

One of the things that God cannot do is lie.

He cannot be anything other than Himself.

He can't say to Himself, "I don't want to be God anymore.

I'll make something else God." That's an impossibility, even for God.

And thus, He cannot be anything other than truthful.

He cannot deny Himself.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2.13, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful." And here's why, "For He cannot deny Himself." Now, if He ceased to be faithful and truthful and honest, then He's no longer sovereign.

He's no longer immutable.

He's no longer perfect.

He's no longer holy.

And if you put one deception or one lie into God, then God evaporates, and He never was.

God ceases to be God.

And for God to deny Himself, He has to kill Himself.

And it's impossible for God not to exist.

It's impossible for God to undermine His own existence, His own being, His own nature.

He cannot work and will not work against Himself.

And therefore, it says over and over, Titus 1.2 says, "God who never lies." Hebrews 6.18, "It is impossible for God to lie." What does this mean for us?

It's a wonderful truth.

It means that God is true, faithful, honest, trustworthy.

If we are faithless, which we are, it doesn't matter.

He remains faithful.

Now, in the ten minutes I have left, let's look at a few applications.

One, now this is where this doctrine is so important.

It's a very applicable, hopeful one.

The truthfulness of the Bible is rooted in the truthfulness of God.

If this is the Word of God, then the Bible is just as honest and truthful, mistake-free, error-free, inspired, and errant as God is.

This is why you say, "Well, don't elevate the Bible. Don't worship the Bible." Well, how do you not honor God's Word?

Because the Word of God comes from God.

It is God's message. It is God's Word.

And it's just as authoritative as God is authoritative.

That's why the Bible has all the attributes of God.

It speaks authoritatively. It speaks with honesty.

It speaks with power.

It is the power of God into salvation.

It speaks faithfully.

The Bible says in Psalm 100 verse 5, "For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations." The Word of God is true when it was first inspired.

Psalms 100:5

It's just as much true today.

Time doesn't progress from this idea that truth is ever progressing through antithesis, synthesis.

It's not this dialectic movement of gaining in truth and visually will arrive to truth one day if we're patient enough, long enough.

No, truth's from the beginning.

And it's been recorded for us in His Word.

God's Word is truthful because God is truthful.

It flows out of God, out of His very breath.

It proceeds out of the breath of God.

As my words are proceeding out of the breath of my heart and my mind, God's Word has come directly out of the breath of God.

And that's what it means to be inspired.

It represents God's holy and perfect and spotless nature.

For the Bible to be wrong, God Himself would have to cease to exist.

If this is lying to us, then God is not God and there never has been a God.

That's how firm of a foundation we have.

So what do you root your knowledge in?

What do you root your confidence in?

Are you rooted in the very character of God, in the very nature of who God is?

And secondly, as a word of application, this means that God's promises, all of them, are certain and sure.

The Bible tells us in Romans 3-4, "Let God be true, though everyone is a liar." Though we find lies everywhere, misspeach, the words of today, or misinformation, you hear that all the time now.

I mean, that's true. There's a lot of misinformation everywhere.

But not in God's Word, not in God.

His promises are certain.

The only thing really in the day of confusion, and where everybody's mistrust everybody else, and we're skeptical about what we're reading and what we're hearing and what we're seeing, sometimes you just have to go back to what do I know?

What can I count on? What is true?

What's God's Word? It's God's promises.

This means you can trust God.

This is the proper response to the truthfulness of God is that you trust Him.

You can't always trust your eyes.

This is why Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that things that are unseen, the realities that we can't see with our eyes, our physical, empirical senses, are more real or more certain than the things that we see.

I mean, we can ask my wife and I, we've had conversations that we've seen sheep or goats or sheep or cows.

I mean, one of us is wrong, or maybe both of us are wrong.

Maybe it's our memories. I don't know what it is, but maybe our poor eyesight, something got us confused.

And so sometimes you can't even trust what you see.

Sometimes you can't trust your memories.

But one thing you can trust is the Word of God.

If He's made you a promise, that you can bank on.

It can't be revoked. It cannot be retracted. It cannot be undone.

The Bible tells us in Romans 9, 33, "The one who believes in Him will never be put to shame." Sometimes that phrase is, "Those who trust in Him, those who believe in Him, shall never be disappointed." Never once is in the history of the human race, from Adam to Abraham to Moses, the prophets to the apostles, to all the heroes of the faith throughout history, down to our very time.

Not one person, even the weakest Christian who says, "I'm going to trust the Lord in this," ever came away disappointed, ever said, "Oh, God didn't keep His word." And this is amazing. There are some promises in the Bible that I find that are so certain that I'm guaranteed to receive them.

"He who lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, and God will give generously without finding fault." It's like, "Hey, I like wisdom. God's promised to give that to me." Well, now I may think, "Well, he'll find some reason not to give it to me." No, the Bible says he won't find fault in you, but he'll give you generously.

If you ask, you will receive. That's a promise, right?

And if we understood the certainty of that promise and all of us like wisdom, we should be going, "I'm going to pray that every day. I need that.

Therefore, God's going to give it to me. How do I know He's going to give it to me?" Because God doesn't lie. He can't lie.

Isaiah 28, 16 says, "The one who believes in Him will never be shaken.""Will never come away going, 'That was a false confidence.' God broke His deal with me. God broke His word. God lied to me." It never happens. It never will happen.

Now, here's the thing. I want to close on this with the four minutes I have left.

I want to close on this, especially for the kids and all of us.

I remember doubting my salvation for a couple of years.

I mean, a couple of years, three years struggling with, "Am I saved or not?" Here's the problem I had, and I probably still have it to some degree today, is that sometimes we go, "Well, I know God's word is true, but I don't know if I have faith." So you start examining your faith, and your faith is trying to trust in faith.

Does that make sense? Your faith is like, "Do I have faith?" I mean, it's like your eyes trying to look at themselves.

Take your eyeballs out. "Can I see?" So your eyes are, "This eye wants to look at this eye. Can this eye see this eye?" But you don't see if you can see by seeing your eyeballs.

Your eyes don't look at themselves.

They don't need to look at themselves to know if they see.

Faith doesn't need to look at faith.

When you start examining your faith, you're going to be full of doubt, because your faith is weak.

Your faith is not something to trust in.

Your faith is shaky.

I believe by help of unbelief. That's how we all feel.

I think that's what I was doing in those early days.

I was struggling because of my own unfaithfulness.

I surely can't be saved. I'm a weak man.

I fail all the time. I make this sin, and that sin.

Surely I don't have the fruits of the Spirit.

Surely I don't love God the way I should.

You can begin to question and wonder.

Finally, I've said this story a couple of times in some of my sermons, but its reality was my own experience.

Finally, I was laying in bed, and I had the imagery of dying and getting into heaven, or getting to the gates of heaven, if you would.

I can see into heaven, and there is God.

The Father is saying, "Why should you come in here?

Why should I let you in?" I didn't go, "Look at my faith." I didn't say, "Look at my good works." I thought to myself, "I don't count on any of these things.

I know that I'm a failure. I'm a sinner. I don't deserve it.

I don't look at me." Finally, I thought to myself, "There is this man named Jesus.

He's given me a promise. He's the one who died for me.

He's the one who rose from the dead for me.

This is the truth. He is the way, the truth, and the life." I said, "He is my hope." That's when I realized for God to send me to hell, He would have to send Christ to hell.

He would have to break His promise.

Once I realized that God cannot break His promise, He cannot deny Himself, I was like, "Well, that is a surety. That is confidence." You can have assurance of salvation, because there's a certainty that God is truthful.

God cannot lie to us. He will never lie to us.

So let me end with this word before we pray.

Let's believe God.

Let's bank on Him. Let's trust Him.

Not just for the salvation of our souls, for all the promises of God.

We would do well to just start looking for the promises, like He will promise to give us the Holy Spirit if we ask.

There are so many wonderful promises that we know He will give us.

I'll add a prayer request as Ryan comes up here and gives us more.

Let's pray the Holy Spirit will come to us at this service.

If we pray, that's when we know He'll answer.

Let's pray for that, and let's trust the Lord. Amen.