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Love Your Neighbor (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

Leviticus 19 is sometimes called the Sermon on the Mount of the Old Testament, since like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, it is a collection of moral instructions for God’s people, including the specific command that is the second greatest commandment: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Repeated twice in this chapter, we should understand the whole chapter (and Jesus says the whole Old Testament) as a lesson on that point.

THE TEXT

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy…”

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Since piety begins at home, God’s people are to fear their mother and their father, keep God’s sabbaths, and not turn to idols (19:1-4). When they offer peace offerings, they may only eat the feast for two days, preventing overindulgence, laziness, and greed – probably implying the need to share and be generous (19:5-8). Related, God requires business owners to leave leftovers for the poor (19:9-10). God’s people must not steal, lie, swear falsely, or rob anyone, even by being slow to pay what we owe, particularly to the poor (19:11-13). All cruelty, especially to the disabled, is condemned, as well as all injustice through favoritism or partiality (19:14-15). All gossip and slander are prohibited as forms of murder and hatred, and if you have a problem with someone, you must talk to them directly (19:16-17). God’s people are to reject all vengeance and grudges, and love their neighbors as themselves (19:18).

While mixing seeds and fabrics may have been prohibited as a sign of distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, this law also points to God’s insistence that His people not confuse and mix the “fabric” of the way God made the world, e.g. male and female (19:19). While justice is to be without partiality, God insists that those with less power (e.g. slaves) be granted greater benefit of the doubt, particularly in cases of sexual immorality (19:20-22). The people were required to trust God for the fruit of their newly planted trees, waiting until the fifth year to eat it (19:23-25). All idolatry is prohibited: whether through consuming blood, pagan hairstyles, tattoos, prostitution, or witchcraft (19:26-31). The chapter returns to where it began, reminding the people to keep sabbath, rise up before the elderly, love strangers as themselves, and keep justice, since God is the Lord and brought them out of Egypt (Lev. 19:32-37).

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

Jesus and the New Testament writers repeatedly insist that the whole law is found in this summary: love your neighbor as yourself (Lk. 10:27-28, Gal. 5:14, Js. 2:8). This is the law and the prophets, and all the laws are summarized and fulfilled in this one: love your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:39-40, Rom. 13:9-10). Love is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mk. 12:29-33). This completely contradicts those who claim that the law of God is opposed to love, or that the Old Testament was not about the love of God. Love is obedience to God from the heart. But to truly understand the law of God is to see how far short we fall of God’s love.

This love requires strict justice and fairness in some matters (19:11-13, 15, 35-36), but also loves mercy and generosity (19:9-10, 20-22). Even manners are love in the little things: clothing, hair, standing for the elderly (19:19, 27, 32). Love works hard, honestly, avoiding the need to receive charity, with the goal of being able to give generously to those in need (Lev. 19:5-6, 9-10, 34, cf. 2 Thess. 3:5ff, Eph. 4:28). While civil magistrates have a duty to love God by enforcing strict justice, they have no business coercing the “love” or charity of others. Government programs and the taxation they require only robs people of the opportunity to love freely.

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

When the lawyer asked Jesus who his neighbor was that he was to love, Jesus famously answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:29-37). The striking thing is that Jesus shifts the question from “Who is my neighbor?” (object) to “Who acted as a neighbor?” (subject) (Lk. 10: 29, 36). The point is that we are required to have a certain disposition, ready to love. Notice that the so-called rule-followers (the Levite and Priest) are the ones who fail to be neighbors, and the one notorious for breaking rules (the Samaritan) is the one who loves the nearly-dead Jew. The Samaritan is incredibly lavish, and Jesus emphasizes this: bandages, oil, wine, transportation, lodging, further care, future care, and all expenses paid (Lk. 10:34-35).

Most interpreters take the Samaritan to be a type of Jesus, an outcast, come to rescue the nearly-dead human race in Adam, which certainly works. It may also be the case that Jesus intends to be prefigured in the stripped, beaten, and robbed man among the thieves, setting the goal of neighbor-love as ultimately aimed at loving Him, through the least of these my brethren (Mt. 25:40). In either case, the conclusion is that in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must reckon yourself an outsider, a foreigner, a threat, a criminal, already rejected, having nothing to lose (Gal. 2:20). In other words, love means reckoning yourself as among the rescued, as among the slaves because you were freed from Egypt (Lev. 19:34, 36).

CONCLUSIONS

As we consider our duty to love, we should remember the difference between refugees and apostles from the world. Refugees are fleeing from the world and frequently show up looking like the world, talking like the world, and full of the confusions of the world but they are teachable and hungry to learn. Apostles show up with a message from the world about how backward and narrow-minded Biblical thinking and living is. Refugees are welcome to come and learn and grow; apostles should be corrected a couple times and then not given the time of day (Tit. 3:10).

Throughout the text, the line is repeated: “I am the Lord,” and it seems that this should be taken as shorthand for the bookends: “I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2) and “I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt” (19:36). God’s holiness is directed at saving His people, and God’s holiness is bound up with His love. But this holy love is not content to merely “affirm” anyone just as they are or in whatever they want to do or be. No, this holy love is determined to bring Christ into every moment, to see Him in those around us (however weak or foreign or unlovely) until His image emerges clearly in them. We are called to this love because it is precisely the kind of love that God has bestowed upon us.

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Blood, Marriage, and Worship (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

These two chapters are the hinge of the book of Leviticus, the first half broadly sketching our duties to God (1-17) and the second half our duties to our neighbor (18-27). In this, we see the great indicative/imperative distinction that echoes through the rest of Scripture and Christian theology. We do because of what God has done. We do because of what God has made us to be. So the center of life is the blood of Christ, and everything else flows from there.

THE TEXT

“… What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle…” (Lev. 17–18).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

God prohibits His people from offering sacrifices to other gods (Lev. 17:1-7), as well as offering sacrifices in any other place than He designates (17:8-9). God also forbids eating or drinking the blood of animals whether sacrificial animals or animals taken for food, since the life is in the blood (17:10-16). Those who disobey these commands are to be cut off or excommunicated from the covenant people (17:4, 9, 10, 14). Paganism and idolatry are always trying to trick life out of lifeless and dead things, and next to blood, sexual rites are the other common talisman of the nations. So God forbids His people from imitating the sexual confusions of the Egyptians and Canaanites (18:1-17), particularly through tribalistic marriages (18:18), or any other vile perversions (18:19-25). By these, the earth is defiled and vomits out its inhabitants (18:26-30).

THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM

The council of Jerusalem clearly affirmed the ongoing relevance of these chapters: “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication…” (Acts 15:28-29). While fornication often refers to sex outside of marriage, it also refers to any kind of sexual immorality, which would include all the incestuous prohibitions in our text. While it may have been tempting to dismiss these prohibitions against blood and incest as a lot of archaic oddities in previous decades, these have actually been the marks of paganism throughout history, and they are currently in the process of being mainstreamed again as we speak. The council was not prohibiting eating rare steak, but clearly we may not dismiss these prohibitions as mere ceremonial law. God’s people must always abstain from idolatry, including the bloodlust and sexual deviance that accompanies it.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

We should never forget is that it is not whether there will be blood, but which blood, whose blood. The life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11, 14), and in this fallen world man wants to trick life out of blood apart from the God who gives and upholds all life. The fires of Molech (Lev. 18:21) and all abortion is the attempt to trick life out of blood and death. Cultures of sexual deviance are also always cultures of death and dying, and the diseases and ailments and shorter life spans that accompany them are no accident (Lev. 18:22-24). As Romans 1:27 says, they receive the consequences in their own bodies by their actions. It is simply a fact that the widespread culture of piercing and tattooing has also grown out of this bloodshed. Despite great progress in medical science, pseudo-scientific witchcraft is also on the rise. We reject the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ complete ban on blood transfusions, but we absolutely agree that the perennial scientific hubris of man must be rejected: trying to be lord of life and death, especially attempts to conjure up life from the bodies of murdered babies. But we have all this bloodshed because we have rejected the blood of Jesus. We have been embarrassed and ashamed of the blood of Jesus, and so now we have blood running in our streets. It is not whether but which.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

When one extreme rears its ugly head, you can bet that others are preparing their pitch. We live under a regime of statism (worshiping the power of the state), but right on schedule, we have some beginning to preach the power of familialism or tribalism. While statists worship the blood of the sword, another ancient demonic impulse worships the blood of kin, and incest has historically been central to that quest for power. While there are sexual deviants who pursue perversion for mere kicks, we should not be naïve to the power plays at work in the current sexual cesspool. The statists and globalists are currently using sexual deviance to grasp for power, but one reaction to that tyranny collapses into an idolatry of tribe with its own attendant sexual maladies (e.g. polygamy, incest). But we are not tribalists, we are covenantal Christians.

Human society is built on flourishing families, but families cannot flourish apart from the blessing of God, apart from the blood of Christ (and neither can nations). The blood of Christ does not obliterate natural affections for family and culture or nation, but natural affection certainly must die and rise again. Jesus said that unless we hate our father and mother, we cannot be His disciples (Lk. 14:26). The Kingdom of God is an international, global, and pentecostal mission. We believe that the nations (as nations) will bring their glories into the New Jerusalem, but those Christian nations will be united by the Spirit of God indwelling them, joint missionary work, tons of neighborly commerce, and boatloads of cousins.

CONCLUSION

Never forget that God made the world such that you become what you worship. Psalm 115 says that those who make idols and serve them become like them, and when you reject the Living God, you can only go down. You can only change the glory of the incorruptible God into images of corruptible man, birds, beasts, or creeping things (Rom. 1:23). But when you worship man divorced from His Maker, you are worshipping a man descending into beastlike vulgarity. When you worship animals you become like them.

So we are here to worship the Living God who made us, who knows what we are for, and who has come and dwelt among us, so that we might become like Him. Creation itself groans for the redemption of the sons of God because when we worship and act like animals we only harm and misuse creation and so it vomits us out. But the blood of Jesus cleanses every stain, and by His blood we have eternal life. And under that blessing, we work and marry and exercise dominion until the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

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Self-Deception in Marriage

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INTRODUCTION

Self-deception is truly an interesting psychological phenomenon. I mean, whenever it occurs in your life, that means that you are the one lied to, and you are the liar, and you buy it. “Seems reasonable,” you mutter to yourself.

Now at one level, Scripture teaches that every form of sin, disobedience or unbelief is a form of self-deception. You are living in the world that God made, with all of His self-disclosure operating, and yet you are steadfastly telling yourself that the world isn’t really like that.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: But he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise” (Proverbs 12:15). “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12). Sin is the refusal to see your relationship to God and His world for what it actually is, and so it is a form of self-deception.

THE TEXT

“He feedeth on ashes: A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (Isaiah 44:20).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Isaiah is speaking the plain stupidity that cuts down a tree (v. 14), and which uses a portion of the wood to keep himself warm, and to cook his food, on the one hand (v. 15), and from the rest of the wood he carves an object of adoration (vv. 15, 17, 19).

A deceived heart is turned aside, meaning that a deceived heart is both deceived and deceiving. The end result is that the idol he has fashioned to deliver him will be unable to deliver him. He should have known this already because he carved his savior out of a piece of wood that he cut down himself.

FOUR KINDS OF SELF-DECEPTION

We have already seen that all sins are self-deception at some level, but there are certain forms of it that might be called “high-profile” instances of self-deception.

Forgetful neglect of application: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was . . . If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain” (James 1:22-24, 26). The deception occurs in between the sermon and the moment this afternoon when application is called for.

Assumption of innocence: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Everyone here is encased in a first-person-singular narrative. And everyone here has a strong impulse to trust the narrator, which is a bad idea.

Neglect of holiness: “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Corinthians 3:18–20). We are very prone to self-deception when it comes to the moral demands of the free grace gospel. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).

Self-serving flattery: “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3). Every man wants to be the hero in his own story, and casting yourself in that role is the very worst way of accomplishing this.

A BAD MARRIAGE OR A BAD ATTITUDE

Not all Christian marriages are successful. Some really thrive, most are pretty okay, some struggle along, and a handful are what we would call “bad marriages.” If you would put yourself in that category, I want to suggest one more division that I hope you might find helpful.

One kind of bad marriage is the result of a real mismatch of persons. The conflicts and difficulties arise out of the clashes between very different perspectives. The communicate poorly and problems result. They assume too much in opposite directions and problems result. This does happen, and a lot of good pastoral help is available—in Scripture, with counselors, with good literature.

But the intractable problems are, in my experience, not strictly speaking bad marriages at all. The marriage is just the location where the badness is manifesting itself. What would you think of someone who gave a restaurant a savage one-star review on Yelp, and if you asked him why he did that, the response was that while he was there he got the worst toothache of his life? You should say, yeah, that wasn’t a bad restaurant experience. It was a bad experience in a restaurant.

Intractable marriages problems are often intractable problems in a marriage, not the result of the marriage.

PRIDE, THE GREAT ENEMY

When a self-deceived person marries, they are moving into a room filled with excuses. Opportunities for misdirection and blame-shifting abound. Remember that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9). The thing that deceives such a person is the pride of his heart (Oba. 3), and remember that pride goes before destruction (Prov. 16:18). The self-deceived husband compares himself to himself, and the wife measures herself with herself (2 Cor. 10:12). These are not wise.

I am talking about (and to) the husband who is sullen, grouchy, and angry all the time. He tells himself is not angry all the time because he is not yelling all the time, which tells us how much he knows about it. I am talking about (and to) the wife who is a lazy and undisciplined, and if any real work threatens to intrude, she is sure to develop a serious malady with ambiguous symptoms. These two examples are stand-ins for countless others. The problem, the central problem, is self-deception.

THE MIRROR OF CHRIST

The only remedy for such self-deception is to see yourself accurately, and this can only be done by looking into the perfect law of liberty (Jas. 1:5). But this should not be understood as a detached list of rules. Christ is the end (telos) of the law (Rom. 10:4). Your identity is in Christ. If you look at yourself there, in the mirror of Christ, you do not just see Christ. You also see yourself, perhaps for the very first time.

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The Glory of Womanhood (King’s Cross Church)

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INTRODUCTION

The glory of a woman is her beauty, and but real Biblical beauty is not mere externals but something far deeper and richer and incorruptible that cultivates and glorifies life. Man is the glory of God and woman is the glory of man, and this means that she is the glory of the glory. She makes the human race shine. The center of this glory is the wisdom of motherhood, through building and making homes where life is conceived, blessed, enriched, and loved.

THE TEXT

“And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man’” (Gen. 2:23).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The poetry that Adam is using here is a Hebrew superlative: “bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.” This is like Holy of Holies which is the Most Holy Place or the Song of Songs: The Greatest Song. Adam is saying that this person is like him only better, only more beautiful, more glorious. This is why Paul says that the woman is the “glory of man” (1 Cor. 11). The woman is man glorified, humanity 2.0.

All the way through the creation narrative, the word for “man” is the word “adam.” He was named this because he was taken out of the ground, the “adamah” (Gen. 2:7, 3:19). We might call that name: “earth man.” Our English translations go back and forth between translating the word as “man” and “Adam.” And it really does mean both things. But in Gen. 2:23, at the very moment where Adam names his bride “Woman,” he gives himself a new name.

The word for “woman” is “eeshah,” and it seems to be related in some way to the word for “fire” (“eysh”). Right at the moment when the woman is presented to Adam, he says she is his glory, man-glorified (“bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh”), he names her “glory” (or “fire”), and he says that it is because she was taken from – and here, he gives himself a new name: “eesh.” He names his wife “eeshah” because she was taken out of “eesh” (“glory-man”).

The point is that Adam is saying that in the gift of the woman, in the gift of his wife, he has been changed. He is a new man now. She has made him new. In the very act of naming and blessing his wife, he says the blessing has come upon him. He has become a new man because of her glory. She shines, and she shines so brightly, that it lights him up: his face shines with her glory.

WISDOM BUILDS A HOUSE

In Proverbs, wisdom is a woman, and wisdom always builds. The question is what kind of house are you building? “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands” (Prov. 14:1). Quite literally, a woman is someone who has a “home” inside of her. The first home everyone ever lived in was the home of their mother’s womb. A woman simply is a homemaker. But this is also sign to her and the world about what she is for. A woman’s calling is to make people by making home for them (Tit. 2:5). And here, we need to expand what we mean by motherhood. This certainly includes conception and childbearing, but the calling of motherhood and “making people” hardly stops at birth. And so it is that motherhood and homemaking are the calling of all women. Deborah was a mother of Israel (Judg. 5:7), the mother of Rufus was a mother to Paul (Rom. 16:13), and the Christian Church is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26). People are being made all day long through rest, food, care, friendship, clothing, food, games, discipline, reading, and food. And we really must not underestimate the potency of all of this. People are made in the image of God, and people will live forever.

C.S. Lewis: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” (The Weight of Glory, 18-19)

TEMPTATIONS OF WOMEN

In 1 Peter 3, the apostle addresses the relative weakness of women and three common temptations that arise with that: words, beauty, and fear. Women are often tempted to use their words to manipulate, get attention, correct, nag, but they need to remember that their words are not their power. Their words can be life or death (Prov. 18:21, 27:15). Women are also tempted to use their beauty to manipulate, get attention, to influence, but you need to remember that your physical beauty is not your power either. And while your fleshly fear and anxiety can sometimes get people to do things, it isn’t your power either. Your true feminine power is your beautiful submission to God, your meek and quiet spirit, obedience to your own husband, and not being afraid of anything that is terrifying (1 Pet. 3:4-6, Prov. 31:30). This is the fear of the Lord in the heart of a woman who knows she belongs to her Savior. He died for all her sins, and therefore she isn’t afraid of anything or anyone and it drives a godly woman’s conduct (1 Pet. 3:2).

CONCLUSION

You can tell what our world respects by where it assumes submission and obedience, and you can tell what our world does not respect by where it immediately runs to all the exceptions. Generally, our world assumes submission and obedience to civil magistrates, the state, and big business, but it constantly warns about church and family governments being oppressive. And these assumptions are driven by where we believe the most important things are happening. But the magistrate is not the glory of man, woman is the glory of man, as she cultivates the beauty of motherhood and homemaking. This glory shines everywhere and impacts everything, but it flows from a gentle and quiet spirit. It flows from a heart that rests secure in Christ.

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Psalm 140: The Tongue of Vipers

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INTRODUCTION 

The children’s rhyme about sticks and stones is actually one that is wildly off the mark. Scripture teaches us that the tongue is one of our most potent organs. When we walk with the Lord, our wholesome speech is a tree of life (Prov. 15:4). If we are given over to evil, the tongue has the capacity to burn down entire forests (Jas. 3:5-6). This psalm gives us a close look at the destructive power of speech.

THE TEXT

“Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: Preserve me from the violent man; Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; Continually are they gathered together for war. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; Adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah. Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; Preserve me from the violent man; Who have purposed to overthrow my goings . . .” (Psalm 140:1-13).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The occasion for this psalm is likely from the time when David was on the run from Saul, and his enemies at court refused to miss any opportunity to malign him. David cries out for deliverance from the evil and violent man (v. 1). Their mischievous plots begin in the heart (v. 2), move to their poisonous speech (v. 3), and end with the violence of their hands (v. 4). These evil ones are doing what they do on purpose. It is thought out, premeditated. They lay the traps and snares beforehand (v. 5).

David turns to his God as his only possible deliverance (v. 6). The Lord who is the strength of his salvation is the same one who placed a shield over his head on the day of battle (v. 7). His enemies are conceited and so he prays that they would not succeed, lest they become even more full of themselves (v. 8). David prays for a divinely appointed recoil (v. 9). From the context, we see that the retribution he wishes for them is that the fall into their own traps (v. 10). Let the malicious hunter let loose the dogs of his cruelty, and may they turn back around and starting hunting him (v. 11). God undertakes for the afflicted and poor (v. 12). The righteous will return thanks to God’s name, and the upright will dwell in His presence (v. 13).

Notice that this psalm begins with the psalmist on the run, looking out for any possible snares and traps. A mere thirteen verses later, he is dwelling in the presence of God.

VERBAL PERSECUTION

We live in a world where actions follow words, and words have the power to result in action. An intelligent Christian should be able to see and predict the trajectory of malice. The road along which this evil runs can be described as a plotting heart (v. 2), a venomous tongue (v. 3), and violent hands (v. 4).

It has become fashionable for the liars of our generation to mock the idea that Christians are being “othered.” But we most certainly are. And however easy it is for someone to say, “Oh, poor widdle Cwistians! Did somebody differ wiff you on Twitter?” That’s not persecution. But that is not what Jesus taught us. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake” (Matt. 5:11). Being reviled most certainly is persecution, and as we see in this psalm, it is the preparation for more direct action to follow.

HOW POISON WORKS

The viper bites, and poison is introduced into the body. Now that body has a circulatory system which is system which keeps the body alive. That body cannot exist without it. Your red blood cells deliver oxygen to every point in your body, and so this amazing system is your essential friend. But the circulatory system is also involved in distributing any poison that is introduced into the body to every part of your body.

Now in any social group—church, school, town, state, or nation—that circulatory system is made up of words. And lies, venomous lies, are the poison.

PROTECTING THE COMMONWEALTH

If you doubt the truth proclaimed in this psalm—about the potency of lies—just look around. Over the last several years, you have witnessed a great nation reduced to a shambolic mess, and all through the power of poisonous lips. We have faced no great invasion. We have not been struck by a giant asteroid. We have not been visited with the frogs of Egypt. We have not seen the Black Death sweep through our cities. The seven angels of Revelation have not emptied their bowls on us.

What we have seen is lies, lies everywhere. The lie of Darwinism. The lie of multiculturalism. The lie of woke. The lie of climate change. The lie of governmental authority. The lie of evangelical steadfastness. The lie of secularism. The lie of a defeated foe is destructive nonetheless, provided that the foolish believe it.

MOUTHS FULL OF GOSPEL

We have many examples of lies and liars being answered in Scripture. That is a lawful response, and in many cases it is a necessary response. Think about Paul, answering questions to the Galatians about how many times he had visited Jerusalem (Gal. 1:17). Think about Jesus, refuting charges that He was casting out demons by the prince of demons (Matt. 12:27). Think about Job, answering charges that he must have brought all his calamities down on himself (Job 42:7). So it is lawful.

But at the same time, our central response must be to point to the cross where the prince of lies was thrown down and humiliated. They fell into the trap that they themselves had prepared. They managed, with their lying tongues, to have the Lord nailed to the cross. And when they had done so, they found all their lies were completely overthrown, forever and all. If the princes of this world had known what they were about, they wouldn’t have done it (1 Cor. 2:8). We should talk about all this more, with our mouths full of gospel.

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