August 30, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode, we explore the concept of the false witness, its distinction from lying, and its consequences. Our discussion centers on the recent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, examining its connection to the Ninth Commandment. We also introduce the term "stochastic terrorism" and its relevance to current political rhetoric and violence.
Through biblical examples, including the story of Korah's rebellion and the martyrdom of Stephen, we highlight the severe repercussions of bearing false witness. We conclude with Jesus' trial and crucifixion, underscoring the ultimate cost of false testimony.
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Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the false witness.
What does it mean to be a false witness, and how is a false witness different than lying?
We'll lead off with Matthew 12, verses 36 through 37, and we'll have many other
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scriptures that we reference and read today, and we'll put those in the overview. you.
But with the false witness before us and the lie that can kill,
let's just dig right in. Thank you, Randy, for the intro.
Indeed, false witness is the lie that kills.
This podcast is about the assassination attempt against Trump and its connection
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to the Ninth Commandment, which, as we shall see in due time,
is much more than just thou shalt not lie.
But before we get to that, let's hear Jesus' word on the subject of words.
Matthew 12, 36-37.
I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.
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For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
By your words. Wow.
Justified or are condemned. Words must be used in a way that God intended and that God approves.
Now, here's a quote from a fellow named Austin Peterson. He was a libertarian,
so he's probably not too thrilled with either Harris or Trump.
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From July 31st of this year, and it's talking about the stochastic nature of what's been going on.
Now, that's a word that's entered the conversation just recently,
stochastic, and it pronounces differently from how it's spells.
It's S-T-O-C-H-A-S-T-I-C.
According to Vocabulary.com, this adjective, stochastic, describes something
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that has a random variable.
You like to joke, in other words, like the city buses follow a stochastic schedule
because they arrive at random times.
Is that a new word? It's been around for a while, but it's been used.
I picked it up several times in my research and finally found a guy who I thought
was really connecting with it. Gotcha.
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So it is a real word. It goes back to the Greek, as so many of these words do.
I'll give you my own homespun example. When boys were at home and we had spaghetti
night, we always did this thing about, let's see if the spaghetti's done.
You throw spaghetti and see if it sticks on the wall.
In other words, stochastic is about throwing it out there and see what sticks,
in this case, to somebody.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
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Here is more from Mr. Peterson. Quote, the recent near assassination of former
President Donald Trump is a direct result of the left's rhetoric and is a chilling
example of the dangerous consequences of stochastic terrorism,
a tactic the left increasingly employs against their political adversaries.
This term refers to the public demonization of individuals or groups to incite
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random acts of violence by unstable individuals.
In Trump's case, the continuous portrayal of him as a, quote,
threat to democracy has borne deadly fruit.
Scholastic terrorism works on the principle that consistent and aggressive rhetoric
can inspire violence without direct orders.
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By painting Trump as an existential threat, the left has laid a foundation for
unhinged actors to believe that extreme measures, such as assassination attempts, are justified.
This isn't a speculative claim, same, but one rooted in the pattern seen throughout history.
When researching this and reading this, what came to my mind was the movie Beckett.
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I don't know how many out there, and of course, this goes back to a long time ago.
Peter O'Toole plays Henry II, and Richard Burton plays Beckett the priest.
And a short summary is, King Henry is a big friend with Beckett,
and they get together, but he wants to use Beckett to hold on to power,
and pretty soon Beckett doesn't like the way things are going,
and so he refuses to cooperate.
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Then King Henry, seemingly one time when he thinks he's by himself,
gets so frustrated, he cries out, Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
Or depending on the translation, some say troublesome priest or meddlesome priest.
Let me give you a little bit of a quote here from Wikipedia so you appreciate this.
This quote, who will deliver me from this troublesome priest,
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is attributed to Henry II of England preceding the death of Thomas Becket,
the Archbishop of Canterbury. That's in 1170.
While the quote was not expressed as an order, and this is key,
it prompted four knights to travel from Normandy to Canterbury where they killed Becket. it.
The phrase is commonly used in modern-day context to express a ruler's whoosh
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that may be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates.
It's also commonly understood as shorthand for any rhetorical device allowing
leaders to covertly order or exhort violence among their followers while still
being able to claim plausible deniability for political,
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ethical legal or other reasons end of quote
you know there's example too in scripture with david when
david laments about wanting water from a certain well
and and some of his soldiers goes and gets it for oh yeah you know and he he
pours it out because he's so precious right right but even there you know he's
just making a comment yes they take it as an order but followers who are sometimes
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more ardent than their leader yeah misconstrue that and say we got to do this yeah That's an order.
So we're going to look at stochastic Hollywood with its rhetoric and visuals against Trump.
But let's start with Proverbs 10, verses 10 through 12.
Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, and a babbling fool will come to ruin.
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The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.
Yes, wink, to act deceptively. It's to say something that sounds horrible,
but then you wink at a person and say, well, I really didn't mean it.
But your mouth is concealing violence, as the proverb says.
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So to act deceptively, wink, wink. Only good Trump is a dead Trump. Wink, wink.
It's a joke. But listen to this from Psalm 35, David's own experience,
verse 19. 14, let not those rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes,
and let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause.
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Yeah, those who wink the eye who hate me without cause. Absolutely.
Here's just a few quotes from well-known celebrities who winked maliciously,
or as some of them say, exercising their First Amendment rights.
Wink, wink. But I don't think on the Day of Judgment, if I heard Jesus write
saying, well, it was the First Amendment, Lord. I don't think that's going to help.
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2017, Snoop Dogg did a video called Lavender with a gun aimed at Trump's head. Wink, wink.
The infamous Kathy Griffin photo of the beheaded Trump, 2017.
Madonna, who said, I'd like to blow up the White House. Bette Midler,
who said, give him a shiv, I mean, a shove.
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Wink, wink. In fact, Saturday's assassination, this is from Breitbart.
So Saturday's going back to the time that attempt was made on Trump.
Saturday's assassination attempt came one week after Bette Midler suggested
President Joe Biden arrest Republicans and allow the FBI to use deadly force
to regain a Democratic Party majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Hollywood has been unhinged for about eight years in this.
Barbara Streisand with a picture of Nancy Pelosi's high heel impaling Trump.
And this was recent, August the 18th of this year.
This is from Todd Starnes, but it was elsewhere in the news,
a top Republican lawmaker is calling for a New York official to be removed from
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office after she compared the assassination attempt on President Trump to putting down a rabid dog.
Christine Page, a town council member in Potsdam, drew national scorn for the
hateful screed that was posted on social media.
Quote, I have seen no credible proof that Trump's a human being.
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Maybe you know something we
don't. To me, it would be akin to putting down a rabid dog, end of quote.
Page later deleted the message, but refused to apologize, saying that she had
a First Amendment right to free speech.
All right. If something happens to Trump, it's not my fault.
I got First Amendment rights.
Well, and there have been umpteen comparisons of him to Hitler, Nazi Germany.
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And of course, if you've seen Robert De Niro, the actor, in the last eight years,
all he ever talked about was, we can't even repeat what he said about Trump.
Now, you may ask, well, what about Republicans and people on the right?
Well, yes, they've indulged in problematic, inflammatory rhetoric as well.
But here's where we need to really understand something. This is even worse
and it's about Donald Trump.
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But listen, in a news conference in August the 16th, this year at a Bedminster
golf course, New Jersey, a reporter asked Mr.
Trump, have you put much thought into why God saved your life? Trump's answer.
Maybe it's because we want to save the world. The world's going down. The world's going down.
Now, the left will take that and say the man wants to run the world.
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Yeah. I mean, this is, but Mr. Trump's problem has always been his mouth runs away. It does.
With his, yeah. Yeah. What he needs to do is listen to Psalm 46, 3, 7. I agree.
Things are in sad shape, and we'll have another podcast in a couple of months dealing with that.
But listen to this. He needs to heed Psalm 46, verses 3 through 7.
Though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling,
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there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved.
God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter.
He utters His voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Yes.
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First two says, therefore, we will not fear that the earth gives way and though
the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.
And as Jerry Lee Lewis used to say, a whole lot of shaking going on.
But the psalmist is saying, even when chaos is coming, our world is falling apart.
We will trust in the Lord. We will not go berserk and think,
you know, there's no hope.
Well, but here's the issue. While politicians left and right have engaged in
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inflammatory rhetoric,
the culture at large, especially the entertainment field, has been inflammatory
against Trump constantly for eight years without let up.
The TV, movies, radio, TV talk shows, which dominate the airwaves from the left,
have consistently savaged him and not President Biden.
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Now, before we go further, understand, Christian expectations,
we want to find out what the scriptures say and follow that.
We're not here to promote Trump because he's been persecuted.
Right. Understand that. We're trying to understand the nature of a false witness
and why the Bible makes such, as we will see, such a big deal about it.
It's more than just a lie.
Remember, as we've said here before on Christian expectations,
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politics is downstream from culture.
And creating a sentiment, good or bad, runs down into politics.
And Abraham Lincoln, one of my favorite quotes from him is, it's not law,
it's not politics, it's sentiment that runs a nation.
Good sentiment is great, and then you can have good laws and sustain them.
Bad sentiment, you'll end up with bad laws and things go to pot.
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It's all about public sentiment. Where does this come from? Listen to Revelation
17, 1 and 2, and we're looking at this to understand the matter of how politics
is downstream from culture. We're not worried about where does this take place in the future.
This is a teaching that's valid. We need to understand.
Revelation 17, 1 and 2.
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me,
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Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters,
with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality,
and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.
Okay. And of course, this is not to be taken literally. if she's sitting on
many waters, a lot of kings coming in to have the fornication with her,
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it's going to be a little difficult.
It's a way of saying that they have an immoral relationship with this woman.
And she's on many waters, so they got to cross the waters, obviously upstream, to get to her.
To get to the prostitute, they got to cross the water, they're downstream.
An immoral relationship is what the Revelation passage is talking about.
So we ask the question, who is this woman? Well, it gets answered in the last
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verse of this chapter 17, Verse 18.
And the woman that you saw is the great city that is dominion over the kings
of the earth. Right. Cities rule over the kings of the earth.
Absolutely. And the city in question, turn the page, Revelation 18,
it's the city of Babylon, which stands for the world as a city organized against God.
And the governments of the world tap into that and are polluted by it.
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All right? Yeah. That's the idea. They're downstream from the city.
And the master of that city is Satan, who has the world in his grip. 1 John 5, 19.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The great lie of Satan,
which the world repeats, is one of the false witness, destroying a person's
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credibility and character, especially God's and Christ's, than their followers.
That's what a false witness is. And we'll discuss the difference of it in just
a moment. Yeah, the difference of a false witness and lying.
Yes. Yeah. Hang on, we're going to get to it. Okay, I got you.
We're going to get to it. All right.
And Christ's enemies are continually brought false witness against him.
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And we're going to end this broadcast again with that led to the cross, a false witness.
However, the best false witness in the New Testament, believe it or not,
is a guy named Saul of Tarsus.
He was a great false witness. Acts 9, verses 1 and 2.
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus,
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so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women,
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Yes, he believed that they were blaspheming. So he's a false witness because
what? The people he hates are, in fact, following the way of truth.
And this is important. He tortures them to get a false witness out of them.
Acts 26, verse 11, he's talking to King Agrippa.
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And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme.
And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
Tried to make them blaspheme. Give a false witness about Jesus.
That's what he wanted to do. And know that false witnesses and violent threats
eventually end in violence.
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Listen to the psalmist again, David. Psalm 27, verse 12.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen
against me, and they breathe out violence.
Yes. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries. In other words,
they're going to kill me.
Violence. And I know it because they're already talking violence.
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And why? Because of their false witness.
Now, we're going to look at the nature of false witness and its connection to
violence according to the biblical witness, and then conclude with the ultimate
violence against Jesus, a violence which was the result of false testimony.
So, let's start with the ninth commandment, which is much more than thou shalt not lie. Exodus 20, 16.
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You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. That's right.
Now, a lot of people read that and they go, well, you don't lie.
Listen to this. This would first apply to legal matters, and the neighbor refers
to anyone who is due a true witness.
This was a problem in Moses' time. Keep this before us.
And it continues into our time. So Moses gave the commandment somewhere in 1400
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BC, depending on how you do the chronology. So that's what, 3,040 years ago.
It's in the commandment, so it's always been a problem, bearing false witness.
Let me read to you from the NIV Cultural Background Study Bible,
which if you don't have it, and you're a serious student of the Scripture, you need to have this.
It's great. Listen to what it says about this verse.
Some have interpreted this verse as a prohibition on lying in general.
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This is not the case. The Hebrew terms used here have forensic connotations.
They relate to the proceedings of a trial court.
Furthermore, the language here points to a particular type of false statement, false accusation.
This prohibition is about wrongful prosecution. Does that ring a bell?
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Specifically coming before a court to start a trial and wrongfully accuse another person.
And we all know what's been happening to Trump.
Now, in other words, though a lie and a false witness share a common ground,
and this is me taking up from the NIV book now and explaining it in my own words,
a lie and a false witness share a common ground, which is deception.
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They differ as to the public nature of the lie. Now, let me give you an example.
Randy likes candy. What's your favorite candy? Oh, runts.
What? Runts. Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is not going to work. I was going to say
I stole them and lied about it, but I don't even know if I want to eat a runt.
No, they're just little fruit-shaped candy. They're shaped like the fruit they
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taste like. Okay, but you like them.
Yeah, they're very good. All right, so we're in Randy's office here.
This is where we do our podcast.
And he's got some of these one day sitting on the desk, and I come in before
he gets in here, and I eat them. So he comes in, and he says, did you eat my runts?
And I say, no, I didn't eat your runts. All right.
That's a lie, right? That's a lie. I'm lying about the candy. I ate him.
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But what if I lie not about his candy, but his character?
This is an entirely different matter. Stealing his character by lying is far
worse than trying to cover up a theft.
How so? Well, as we've just seen, in a public setting, a court using legal means
to slander a person who is innocent to the charge.
As in, is Trump a threat to democracy? Well, yes, then he must go.
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Well, then let's get him in court.
Let's prosecute him. And so all these trials of Trump, which added fuel to the
violence already brewing.
How serious should we take the ninth commandment, this false witness prohibition?
Listen carefully to this and ask yourself, do I really want to be a prosecutor
under the law of Moses? Because this is really extraordinary.
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Deuteronomy 19, verses 16 through 19.
If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing,
then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord,
before the priests and the judges who are in the office in those days.
The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and
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has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.
So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Yes. If this were practiced in our culture, how many false witnesses would make it to trial?
Knowing that if you lose, whatever you're going to do to that guy is going to be done to you.
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Would Jack Smith be prosecuting Trump?
You know, if he lived under the law of Moses?
This is why false witnesses are taken so seriously with the.
Went through this, how do I get my reputation back?
Yeah. How do I get it back? Yeah. Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. Right. Yeah.
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Now, as to the violence connected with a false witness, listen to this from Exodus 23, verse 1.
You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked
man to be a malicious witness.
Now, one false witness is enough, but add another false witness and another
one, which is how this always works.
You start with one false witness and others pile up.
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The odds are that others are going to come and join.
Violence is inherent in such a report. Listen to what Proverbs says about this. In Proverbs 25, 18.
A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club or a sword or a sharp arrow.
Right. A false witness is inherently violent.
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It's like a war club. It's like a sword. It's like a sharp arrow.
As to the seriousness of bearing a false witness, we hear this from Proverbs 19, 9.
A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.
Yes. With this kind of lying, when it becomes so pervasive that it comes out
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with each breath, punishment coming from God, even death, can happen to a false witness.
That's a possible outcome, with the exception, of course, God's mercy.
And that's exactly what we hear Paul say in 1 Timothy 1.13 about his false witness
and his persecution of Christians.
Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent,
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But I received mercy because Hyad acted ignorantly in unbelief.
Ah, he received mercy.
In other words, otherwise he wouldn't have received mercy from the Lord.
That's the key here. The key here is ignorant unbelief. The false witness who
knows better is in a dangerous place before God. Paul was ignorant.
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What's going on in our country these days, they know what they're doing.
They got no way to get out of that.
So what happens? Proverbs 21, 28. A false witness will perish,
but the word of a man who hears will endure.
Yes. Sooner or later, the truth comes out and the lie is destroyed.
The false witness is done away with. But not before other lies have already been destroyed.
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We have a good picture of how this works from the Old Testament,
the story of Korah's rebellion, where he's a false witness about Moses.
Let's listen to this from Numbers 16, verses 1 through 5.
Now Korah, the son of Ishar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan,
and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.
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And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel,
250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly well-known men.
They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said
to them, You have gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
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Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?
When Moses heard it, he fell on his face, and he said to Korah and all his company.
In the morning, the Lord will show you who he is his and who is holy and will bring him near to him.
The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him. Right.
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Korah and his group are saying, everybody in the congregation,
who do you think you are? You're better than somebody else?
You know, no, no, no. You exalted yourself above the assembly of the Lord.
And of course, that's a false witness because God shows Moses, prepared Moses.
If anybody in the Bible is prepared to do what was supposed to be done. It's Moses.
And so Moses is terrified because he knows what's coming.
This is a false witness, and it's the kind of false witness that God will deal with severely.
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How did this work out? We go to the book of Psalms, 106 verses 16 through 18.
When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the Holy One of the Lord,
the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram.
Fire also broke out in their company. the flame burned up the wicket. There you go.
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False witness. Not just telling a lie.
Moses won't give me food or, you know, whatever they got going.
This is serious, serious business.
And this instant, the proverb came true.
False witness perishes. And the bearers of the false witness,
you know, saying that Moses is not the leader, they all went down with Korah.
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All because of jealousy. That's what the psalmist says.
Jealous for what? For power. And it sounds political to me. Make the application.
False witnesses sparked the first Christian martyr. Yeah, our first Christian
martyr, good Deacon Stephen.
Why did he die? False witnesses. Listen to this in Acts 6, 12 through 15.
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And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes,
and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council.
And they set up false witnesses who said, This man never ceases to speak words
against this holy place and the law, For we have heard him say that this Jesus
of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.
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And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like that
of the face of And that's a good witness in and of itself.
Making false witness as a way of life will lead to mental and spiritual instability,
to say the least, as we're going to see here.
Because Stephen then preached a sermon that was a true witness to God,
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and Jesus and about the people who were there in that assembly.
And when you've gone, however, when you've gone the route of false witnesses,
you're no longer able to discern truth, and therefore violence is always the answer.
This is how this ends, Acts 7, 54 through 60.
Now, when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.
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But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said.
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He fell asleep. And the witnesses laid down their garments.
The witnesses, false witnesses, laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Saul's life as a Pharisee is one of being a false witness.
The only reason he was spared is the grace and the mercy of God because he did
it ignorantly in unbelief. And what's going on today, I don't think fits that.
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Well, Stephen walks in the steps of Jesus. Jesus, our Lord, is delivered up
eventually to the cross by way of false witnesses.
And the rest of the Bible makes it clear that these people were killers and murderers.
But, of course, they do get forgiven. That's great. But listen to this from
Matthew 26, verses 57-61.
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Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest,
where the scribes and the elders had gathered.
And Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high
priest and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.
Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against
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Jesus that they might put him to death but they found none though many false
witnesses came forward.
At last two came forward and said this man said I am able to destroy the temple
of God and to rebuild it in three days.
Right back to that of verse 59, chief priests, the whole council,
everybody were seeking a false testimony.
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So it's like the scripture we just quoted recently, don't get together with
another person as a false witness, but this is what's happening.
And notice that they might put him to death.
False witness, false testimony will eventually,
if they're not stopped, that's where they end, in violence, violence
and violence and so these men come forward the last two and they say he said
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this i'm able to destroy the temple of god and rebuild in three days we know
what jesus meant by that obviously from gospel of john but they used it as a
false witness jesus spoke the truth when he said that about himself.
They couldn't understand that. They didn't understand it. The important thing
is they didn't want to understand it.
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That's important. We repeat, when false witnesses fail, violence will follow,
and people don't want to know about the truth.
Jesus finally makes the confession that he is the one, verses 62 through 64.
And the high priest stood up and said, Have you no answer to make?
What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent.
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And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God,
tell us if you're the Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus said to him, You have said so, but I tell you from now on, Yes.
He confronts their false witnesses with the witness of the truth. Absolutely.
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But at this point, they agree he deserves to die. And this is where false witness leads.
All that matters is the killing.
Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.
The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release
for you? And they said, Barabbas.
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Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?
They all said, Let him be crucified.
And he said, Why? What evil has he done?
But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified. Yes, the need to have someone
dead takes precedence over everything else.
Even Pilate, in some way, understood that, all those will see.
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He was compromised by being around false witnesses.
So Jesus was crucified but rose on the third day, and so his testimony about
himself becomes gloriously true.
Politics has always been rife with false witnesses, false testimonies,
lies, lies, lies. and sometimes the greater the false witness, the more it's believed.
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What shall we do? What is the Christian expectation? To always be truthful.
Listen to this. Amid false witnesses, what does Pilate finally ask Jesus?
This is from John 18. What is truth?
When you spend too much time with false witnesses, that's where you end up.
You don't have an idea of what truth is.
(31:08):
The truth you need to grasp, you can't.
Instead, this is what Paul says we who are Christians need to spend time doing.
It's excellent advice in this day of false witnesses.
Philippians 4, verse 8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable,
(31:29):
if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things. Right.
First word, whatever is true.
And then what follows are all those good things that go with truth,
justice, things that are honorable, purity, what is lovely, beauty,
commendable, what is excellent, and things that are worthy of praise.
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Think about these things.
Think about them. And these eight items are found not only in the Bible,
by the way, but you find them in life.
You can find them in a place where you work. They're found throughout history
and in the best of literature.
And listen to this. What we spend time with is what we become.
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And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, thanks, Jim. That's a lot to think about.
And perhaps you have questions or comments on it.
We'd love to hear your questions and
comments. please send them to eventsandexpectations, that's all one word,
at gmail.com, or simply post a question on one of the various social media platforms
(32:34):
or where you get your podcast as a comment, and we will always answer you.
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations, and until next time, keep looking up.
Music.
(00:07):
Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the false witness.
What does it mean to be a false witness, and how is a false witness different than lying?
We'll lead off with Matthew 12, verses 36 through 37, and we'll have many other
(00:30):
scriptures that we reference and read today, and we'll put those in the overview. you.
But with the false witness before us and the lie that can kill,
let's just dig right in. Thank you, Randy, for the intro.
Indeed, false witness is the lie that kills.
This podcast is about the assassination attempt against Trump and its connection
(00:50):
to the Ninth Commandment, which, as we shall see in due time,
is much more than just thou shalt not lie.
But before we get to that, let's hear Jesus' word on the subject of words.
Matthew 12, 36-37.
I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.
(01:12):
For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
By your words. Wow.
Justified or are condemned. Words must be used in a way that God intended and that God approves.
Now, here's a quote from a fellow named Austin Peterson. He was a libertarian,
so he's probably not too thrilled with either Harris or Trump.
(01:37):
From July 31st of this year, and it's talking about the stochastic nature of what's been going on.
Now, that's a word that's entered the conversation just recently,
stochastic, and it pronounces differently from how it's spells.
It's S-T-O-C-H-A-S-T-I-C.
According to Vocabulary.com, this adjective, stochastic, describes something
(02:00):
that has a random variable.
You like to joke, in other words, like the city buses follow a stochastic schedule
because they arrive at random times.
Is that a new word? It's been around for a while, but it's been used.
I picked it up several times in my research and finally found a guy who I thought
was really connecting with it. Gotcha.
(02:21):
So it is a real word. It goes back to the Greek, as so many of these words do.
I'll give you my own homespun example. When boys were at home and we had spaghetti
night, we always did this thing about, let's see if the spaghetti's done.
You throw spaghetti and see if it sticks on the wall.
In other words, stochastic is about throwing it out there and see what sticks,
in this case, to somebody.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
(02:44):
Here is more from Mr. Peterson. Quote, the recent near assassination of former
President Donald Trump is a direct result of the left's rhetoric and is a chilling
example of the dangerous consequences of stochastic terrorism,
a tactic the left increasingly employs against their political adversaries.
This term refers to the public demonization of individuals or groups to incite
(03:12):
random acts of violence by unstable individuals.
In Trump's case, the continuous portrayal of him as a, quote,
threat to democracy has borne deadly fruit.
Scholastic terrorism works on the principle that consistent and aggressive rhetoric
can inspire violence without direct orders.
(03:33):
By painting Trump as an existential threat, the left has laid a foundation for
unhinged actors to believe that extreme measures, such as assassination attempts, are justified.
This isn't a speculative claim, same, but one rooted in the pattern seen throughout history.
When researching this and reading this, what came to my mind was the movie Beckett.
(03:56):
I don't know how many out there, and of course, this goes back to a long time ago.
Peter O'Toole plays Henry II, and Richard Burton plays Beckett the priest.
And a short summary is, King Henry is a big friend with Beckett,
and they get together, but he wants to use Beckett to hold on to power,
and pretty soon Beckett doesn't like the way things are going,
and so he refuses to cooperate.
(04:17):
Then King Henry, seemingly one time when he thinks he's by himself,
gets so frustrated, he cries out, Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
Or depending on the translation, some say troublesome priest or meddlesome priest.
Let me give you a little bit of a quote here from Wikipedia so you appreciate this.
This quote, who will deliver me from this troublesome priest,
(04:38):
is attributed to Henry II of England preceding the death of Thomas Becket,
the Archbishop of Canterbury. That's in 1170.
While the quote was not expressed as an order, and this is key,
it prompted four knights to travel from Normandy to Canterbury where they killed Becket. it.
The phrase is commonly used in modern-day context to express a ruler's whoosh
(05:00):
that may be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates.
It's also commonly understood as shorthand for any rhetorical device allowing
leaders to covertly order or exhort violence among their followers while still
being able to claim plausible deniability for political,
(05:22):
ethical legal or other reasons end of quote
you know there's example too in scripture with david when
david laments about wanting water from a certain well
and and some of his soldiers goes and gets it for oh yeah you know and he he
pours it out because he's so precious right right but even there you know he's
just making a comment yes they take it as an order but followers who are sometimes
(05:44):
more ardent than their leader yeah misconstrue that and say we got to do this yeah That's an order.
So we're going to look at stochastic Hollywood with its rhetoric and visuals against Trump.
But let's start with Proverbs 10, verses 10 through 12.
Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, and a babbling fool will come to ruin.
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The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.
Yes, wink, to act deceptively. It's to say something that sounds horrible,
but then you wink at a person and say, well, I really didn't mean it.
But your mouth is concealing violence, as the proverb says.
(06:28):
So to act deceptively, wink, wink. Only good Trump is a dead Trump. Wink, wink.
It's a joke. But listen to this from Psalm 35, David's own experience,
verse 19. 14, let not those rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes,
and let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause.
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Yeah, those who wink the eye who hate me without cause. Absolutely.
Here's just a few quotes from well-known celebrities who winked maliciously,
or as some of them say, exercising their First Amendment rights.
Wink, wink. But I don't think on the Day of Judgment, if I heard Jesus write
saying, well, it was the First Amendment, Lord. I don't think that's going to help.
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2017, Snoop Dogg did a video called Lavender with a gun aimed at Trump's head. Wink, wink.
The infamous Kathy Griffin photo of the beheaded Trump, 2017.
Madonna, who said, I'd like to blow up the White House. Bette Midler,
who said, give him a shiv, I mean, a shove.
(07:32):
Wink, wink. In fact, Saturday's assassination, this is from Breitbart.
So Saturday's going back to the time that attempt was made on Trump.
Saturday's assassination attempt came one week after Bette Midler suggested
President Joe Biden arrest Republicans and allow the FBI to use deadly force
to regain a Democratic Party majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
(07:55):
Hollywood has been unhinged for about eight years in this.
Barbara Streisand with a picture of Nancy Pelosi's high heel impaling Trump.
And this was recent, August the 18th of this year.
This is from Todd Starnes, but it was elsewhere in the news,
a top Republican lawmaker is calling for a New York official to be removed from
(08:18):
office after she compared the assassination attempt on President Trump to putting down a rabid dog.
Christine Page, a town council member in Potsdam, drew national scorn for the
hateful screed that was posted on social media.
Quote, I have seen no credible proof that Trump's a human being.
(08:38):
Maybe you know something we
don't. To me, it would be akin to putting down a rabid dog, end of quote.
Page later deleted the message, but refused to apologize, saying that she had
a First Amendment right to free speech.
All right. If something happens to Trump, it's not my fault.
I got First Amendment rights.
Well, and there have been umpteen comparisons of him to Hitler, Nazi Germany.
(09:01):
And of course, if you've seen Robert De Niro, the actor, in the last eight years,
all he ever talked about was, we can't even repeat what he said about Trump.
Now, you may ask, well, what about Republicans and people on the right?
Well, yes, they've indulged in problematic, inflammatory rhetoric as well.
But here's where we need to really understand something. This is even worse
and it's about Donald Trump.
(09:21):
But listen, in a news conference in August the 16th, this year at a Bedminster
golf course, New Jersey, a reporter asked Mr.
Trump, have you put much thought into why God saved your life? Trump's answer.
Maybe it's because we want to save the world. The world's going down. The world's going down.
Now, the left will take that and say the man wants to run the world.
(09:43):
Yeah. I mean, this is, but Mr. Trump's problem has always been his mouth runs away. It does.
With his, yeah. Yeah. What he needs to do is listen to Psalm 46, 3, 7. I agree.
Things are in sad shape, and we'll have another podcast in a couple of months dealing with that.
But listen to this. He needs to heed Psalm 46, verses 3 through 7.
Though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling,
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there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved.
God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter.
He utters His voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Yes.
(10:28):
First two says, therefore, we will not fear that the earth gives way and though
the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.
And as Jerry Lee Lewis used to say, a whole lot of shaking going on.
But the psalmist is saying, even when chaos is coming, our world is falling apart.
We will trust in the Lord. We will not go berserk and think,
you know, there's no hope.
Well, but here's the issue. While politicians left and right have engaged in
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inflammatory rhetoric,
the culture at large, especially the entertainment field, has been inflammatory
against Trump constantly for eight years without let up.
The TV, movies, radio, TV talk shows, which dominate the airwaves from the left,
have consistently savaged him and not President Biden.
(11:14):
Now, before we go further, understand, Christian expectations,
we want to find out what the scriptures say and follow that.
We're not here to promote Trump because he's been persecuted.
Right. Understand that. We're trying to understand the nature of a false witness
and why the Bible makes such, as we will see, such a big deal about it.
It's more than just a lie.
Remember, as we've said here before on Christian expectations,
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politics is downstream from culture.
And creating a sentiment, good or bad, runs down into politics.
And Abraham Lincoln, one of my favorite quotes from him is, it's not law,
it's not politics, it's sentiment that runs a nation.
Good sentiment is great, and then you can have good laws and sustain them.
Bad sentiment, you'll end up with bad laws and things go to pot.
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It's all about public sentiment. Where does this come from? Listen to Revelation
17, 1 and 2, and we're looking at this to understand the matter of how politics
is downstream from culture. We're not worried about where does this take place in the future.
This is a teaching that's valid. We need to understand.
Revelation 17, 1 and 2.
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me,
(12:20):
Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters,
with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality,
and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.
Okay. And of course, this is not to be taken literally. if she's sitting on
many waters, a lot of kings coming in to have the fornication with her,
(12:42):
it's going to be a little difficult.
It's a way of saying that they have an immoral relationship with this woman.
And she's on many waters, so they got to cross the waters, obviously upstream, to get to her.
To get to the prostitute, they got to cross the water, they're downstream.
An immoral relationship is what the Revelation passage is talking about.
So we ask the question, who is this woman? Well, it gets answered in the last
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verse of this chapter 17, Verse 18.
And the woman that you saw is the great city that is dominion over the kings
of the earth. Right. Cities rule over the kings of the earth.
Absolutely. And the city in question, turn the page, Revelation 18,
it's the city of Babylon, which stands for the world as a city organized against God.
And the governments of the world tap into that and are polluted by it.
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All right? Yeah. That's the idea. They're downstream from the city.
And the master of that city is Satan, who has the world in his grip. 1 John 5, 19.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The great lie of Satan,
which the world repeats, is one of the false witness, destroying a person's
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credibility and character, especially God's and Christ's, than their followers.
That's what a false witness is. And we'll discuss the difference of it in just
a moment. Yeah, the difference of a false witness and lying.
Yes. Yeah. Hang on, we're going to get to it. Okay, I got you.
We're going to get to it. All right.
And Christ's enemies are continually brought false witness against him.
(14:13):
And we're going to end this broadcast again with that led to the cross, a false witness.
However, the best false witness in the New Testament, believe it or not,
is a guy named Saul of Tarsus.
He was a great false witness. Acts 9, verses 1 and 2.
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus,
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so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women,
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Yes, he believed that they were blaspheming. So he's a false witness because
what? The people he hates are, in fact, following the way of truth.
And this is important. He tortures them to get a false witness out of them.
Acts 26, verse 11, he's talking to King Agrippa.
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And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme.
And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
Tried to make them blaspheme. Give a false witness about Jesus.
That's what he wanted to do. And know that false witnesses and violent threats
eventually end in violence.
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Listen to the psalmist again, David. Psalm 27, verse 12.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen
against me, and they breathe out violence.
Yes. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries. In other words,
they're going to kill me.
Violence. And I know it because they're already talking violence.
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And why? Because of their false witness.
Now, we're going to look at the nature of false witness and its connection to
violence according to the biblical witness, and then conclude with the ultimate
violence against Jesus, a violence which was the result of false testimony.
So, let's start with the ninth commandment, which is much more than thou shalt not lie. Exodus 20, 16.
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You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. That's right.
Now, a lot of people read that and they go, well, you don't lie.
Listen to this. This would first apply to legal matters, and the neighbor refers
to anyone who is due a true witness.
This was a problem in Moses' time. Keep this before us.
And it continues into our time. So Moses gave the commandment somewhere in 1400
(16:28):
BC, depending on how you do the chronology. So that's what, 3,040 years ago.
It's in the commandment, so it's always been a problem, bearing false witness.
Let me read to you from the NIV Cultural Background Study Bible,
which if you don't have it, and you're a serious student of the Scripture, you need to have this.
It's great. Listen to what it says about this verse.
Some have interpreted this verse as a prohibition on lying in general.
(16:53):
This is not the case. The Hebrew terms used here have forensic connotations.
They relate to the proceedings of a trial court.
Furthermore, the language here points to a particular type of false statement, false accusation.
This prohibition is about wrongful prosecution. Does that ring a bell?
(17:15):
Specifically coming before a court to start a trial and wrongfully accuse another person.
And we all know what's been happening to Trump.
Now, in other words, though a lie and a false witness share a common ground,
and this is me taking up from the NIV book now and explaining it in my own words,
a lie and a false witness share a common ground, which is deception.
(17:38):
They differ as to the public nature of the lie. Now, let me give you an example.
Randy likes candy. What's your favorite candy? Oh, runts.
What? Runts. Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is not going to work. I was going to say
I stole them and lied about it, but I don't even know if I want to eat a runt.
No, they're just little fruit-shaped candy. They're shaped like the fruit they
(17:59):
taste like. Okay, but you like them.
Yeah, they're very good. All right, so we're in Randy's office here.
This is where we do our podcast.
And he's got some of these one day sitting on the desk, and I come in before
he gets in here, and I eat them. So he comes in, and he says, did you eat my runts?
And I say, no, I didn't eat your runts. All right.
That's a lie, right? That's a lie. I'm lying about the candy. I ate him.
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But what if I lie not about his candy, but his character?
This is an entirely different matter. Stealing his character by lying is far
worse than trying to cover up a theft.
How so? Well, as we've just seen, in a public setting, a court using legal means
to slander a person who is innocent to the charge.
As in, is Trump a threat to democracy? Well, yes, then he must go.
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Well, then let's get him in court.
Let's prosecute him. And so all these trials of Trump, which added fuel to the
violence already brewing.
How serious should we take the ninth commandment, this false witness prohibition?
Listen carefully to this and ask yourself, do I really want to be a prosecutor
under the law of Moses? Because this is really extraordinary.
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Deuteronomy 19, verses 16 through 19.
If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing,
then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord,
before the priests and the judges who are in the office in those days.
The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and
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has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.
So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Yes. If this were practiced in our culture, how many false witnesses would make it to trial?
Knowing that if you lose, whatever you're going to do to that guy is going to be done to you.
(19:51):
Would Jack Smith be prosecuting Trump?
You know, if he lived under the law of Moses?
This is why false witnesses are taken so seriously with the.
Went through this, how do I get my reputation back?
Yeah. How do I get it back? Yeah. Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. Right. Yeah.
(20:15):
Now, as to the violence connected with a false witness, listen to this from Exodus 23, verse 1.
You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked
man to be a malicious witness.
Now, one false witness is enough, but add another false witness and another
one, which is how this always works.
You start with one false witness and others pile up.
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The odds are that others are going to come and join.
Violence is inherent in such a report. Listen to what Proverbs says about this. In Proverbs 25, 18.
A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club or a sword or a sharp arrow.
Right. A false witness is inherently violent.
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It's like a war club. It's like a sword. It's like a sharp arrow.
As to the seriousness of bearing a false witness, we hear this from Proverbs 19, 9.
A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.
Yes. With this kind of lying, when it becomes so pervasive that it comes out
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with each breath, punishment coming from God, even death, can happen to a false witness.
That's a possible outcome, with the exception, of course, God's mercy.
And that's exactly what we hear Paul say in 1 Timothy 1.13 about his false witness
and his persecution of Christians.
Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent,
(21:41):
But I received mercy because Hyad acted ignorantly in unbelief.
Ah, he received mercy.
In other words, otherwise he wouldn't have received mercy from the Lord.
That's the key here. The key here is ignorant unbelief. The false witness who
knows better is in a dangerous place before God. Paul was ignorant.
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What's going on in our country these days, they know what they're doing.
They got no way to get out of that.
So what happens? Proverbs 21, 28. A false witness will perish,
but the word of a man who hears will endure.
Yes. Sooner or later, the truth comes out and the lie is destroyed.
The false witness is done away with. But not before other lies have already been destroyed.
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We have a good picture of how this works from the Old Testament,
the story of Korah's rebellion, where he's a false witness about Moses.
Let's listen to this from Numbers 16, verses 1 through 5.
Now Korah, the son of Ishar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan,
and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.
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And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel,
250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly well-known men.
They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said
to them, You have gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
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Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?
When Moses heard it, he fell on his face, and he said to Korah and all his company.
In the morning, the Lord will show you who he is his and who is holy and will bring him near to him.
The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him. Right.
(23:34):
Korah and his group are saying, everybody in the congregation,
who do you think you are? You're better than somebody else?
You know, no, no, no. You exalted yourself above the assembly of the Lord.
And of course, that's a false witness because God shows Moses, prepared Moses.
If anybody in the Bible is prepared to do what was supposed to be done. It's Moses.
And so Moses is terrified because he knows what's coming.
This is a false witness, and it's the kind of false witness that God will deal with severely.
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How did this work out? We go to the book of Psalms, 106 verses 16 through 18.
When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the Holy One of the Lord,
the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram.
Fire also broke out in their company. the flame burned up the wicket. There you go.
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False witness. Not just telling a lie.
Moses won't give me food or, you know, whatever they got going.
This is serious, serious business.
And this instant, the proverb came true.
False witness perishes. And the bearers of the false witness,
you know, saying that Moses is not the leader, they all went down with Korah.
(24:41):
All because of jealousy. That's what the psalmist says.
Jealous for what? For power. And it sounds political to me. Make the application.
False witnesses sparked the first Christian martyr. Yeah, our first Christian
martyr, good Deacon Stephen.
Why did he die? False witnesses. Listen to this in Acts 6, 12 through 15.
(25:03):
And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes,
and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council.
And they set up false witnesses who said, This man never ceases to speak words
against this holy place and the law, For we have heard him say that this Jesus
of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.
(25:25):
And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like that
of the face of And that's a good witness in and of itself.
Making false witness as a way of life will lead to mental and spiritual instability,
to say the least, as we're going to see here.
Because Stephen then preached a sermon that was a true witness to God,
(25:46):
and Jesus and about the people who were there in that assembly.
And when you've gone, however, when you've gone the route of false witnesses,
you're no longer able to discern truth, and therefore violence is always the answer.
This is how this ends, Acts 7, 54 through 60.
Now, when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.
(26:08):
But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said.
(26:45):
He fell asleep. And the witnesses laid down their garments.
The witnesses, false witnesses, laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Saul's life as a Pharisee is one of being a false witness.
The only reason he was spared is the grace and the mercy of God because he did
it ignorantly in unbelief. And what's going on today, I don't think fits that.
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Well, Stephen walks in the steps of Jesus. Jesus, our Lord, is delivered up
eventually to the cross by way of false witnesses.
And the rest of the Bible makes it clear that these people were killers and murderers.
But, of course, they do get forgiven. That's great. But listen to this from
Matthew 26, verses 57-61.
(27:30):
Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest,
where the scribes and the elders had gathered.
And Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high
priest and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.
Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against
(27:51):
Jesus that they might put him to death but they found none though many false
witnesses came forward.
At last two came forward and said this man said I am able to destroy the temple
of God and to rebuild it in three days.
Right back to that of verse 59, chief priests, the whole council,
everybody were seeking a false testimony.
(28:12):
So it's like the scripture we just quoted recently, don't get together with
another person as a false witness, but this is what's happening.
And notice that they might put him to death.
False witness, false testimony will eventually,
if they're not stopped, that's where they end, in violence, violence
and violence and so these men come forward the last two and they say he said
(28:37):
this i'm able to destroy the temple of god and rebuild in three days we know
what jesus meant by that obviously from gospel of john but they used it as a
false witness jesus spoke the truth when he said that about himself.
They couldn't understand that. They didn't understand it. The important thing
is they didn't want to understand it.
(28:58):
That's important. We repeat, when false witnesses fail, violence will follow,
and people don't want to know about the truth.
Jesus finally makes the confession that he is the one, verses 62 through 64.
And the high priest stood up and said, Have you no answer to make?
What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent.
(29:20):
And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God,
tell us if you're the Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus said to him, You have said so, but I tell you from now on, Yes.
He confronts their false witnesses with the witness of the truth. Absolutely.
(29:41):
But at this point, they agree he deserves to die. And this is where false witness leads.
All that matters is the killing.
Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.
The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release
for you? And they said, Barabbas.
(30:03):
Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?
They all said, Let him be crucified.
And he said, Why? What evil has he done?
But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified. Yes, the need to have someone
dead takes precedence over everything else.
Even Pilate, in some way, understood that, all those will see.
(30:26):
He was compromised by being around false witnesses.
So Jesus was crucified but rose on the third day, and so his testimony about
himself becomes gloriously true.
Politics has always been rife with false witnesses, false testimonies,
lies, lies, lies. and sometimes the greater the false witness, the more it's believed.
(30:47):
What shall we do? What is the Christian expectation? To always be truthful.
Listen to this. Amid false witnesses, what does Pilate finally ask Jesus?
This is from John 18. What is truth?
When you spend too much time with false witnesses, that's where you end up.
You don't have an idea of what truth is.
(31:08):
The truth you need to grasp, you can't.
Instead, this is what Paul says we who are Christians need to spend time doing.
It's excellent advice in this day of false witnesses.
Philippians 4, verse 8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable,
(31:29):
if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things. Right.
First word, whatever is true.
And then what follows are all those good things that go with truth,
justice, things that are honorable, purity, what is lovely, beauty,
commendable, what is excellent, and things that are worthy of praise.
(31:50):
Think about these things.
Think about them. And these eight items are found not only in the Bible,
by the way, but you find them in life.
You can find them in a place where you work. They're found throughout history
and in the best of literature.
And listen to this. What we spend time with is what we become.
(32:11):
And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, thanks, Jim. That's a lot to think about.
And perhaps you have questions or comments on it.
We'd love to hear your questions and
comments. please send them to eventsandexpectations, that's all one word,
at gmail.com, or simply post a question on one of the various social media platforms
(32:34):
or where you get your podcast as a comment, and we will always answer you.
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations, and until next time, keep looking up.
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