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All right, amen. Matthew chapter number 26. If you would, look down at verse number 60. Matthew 26, look at verse 60. So the Bible says, but found none, verse 60, but found none, yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none, at the last came two false witnesses. So the title of the sermon this morning is going to be, What Makes a False Witness Tick? So obviously, you know what a false witness is. It's somebody who brings forth lies. The Bible has a lot to say about this subject and about these people. And of course, that's for good reason, okay? We need to understand how these people operate, the damage that they do, so that we can protect ourselves from these types of people. And of course, we're looking at this story here where the, what I'm going to call this warning, this evil trinity made up of the chief priests, the elders, and the council, how they have come together to try and trap Jesus, to try and force their false narrative on him to put him to death. So obviously, that's where we're at in Matthew. But we're going to focus on the false witness aspect of the story. And of course, we're going to break it down and see what we can glean, learn, and apply regarding false prophets, or I'm sorry, false witnesses. Yeah, I was going back and forth. Kayden was like, what's the title? What Makes a False Witness Tick? And then another time I'm like, looking at it, I'm like, oh, it's supposed to be prophet, no witness, no. So just so that we all are clear, because it was a long day yesterday, and I'm still trying to recover, what makes a false witness tick? That's what it is. So if you hear me say prophet this morning, just know in your mind, he means witness, okay? But of course, these two groups have a lot in common. So keep your place right here, go back to the Old Testament, go to Proverbs chapter number six, Proverbs chapter number six. And what we're going to do is we're going to take a look through a few different chapters in Proverbs here. And we're going to learn why we need to know these things, okay? Not only how to spot a false witness, how they work, the damage that they do, but the importance of it. And the book of Proverbs is an excellent place to start your study on the subject of a false witness. Somebody who purposely with intent brings lies to the point of destruction of other people. So let's start this off here, Proverbs chapter six. Now for context, look at verse number 16. Look at what the Bible says here, okay? These six things doth the Lord hate. Okay, you should underline that word there in your Bible, hate, because you know, so many people say, oh, God doesn't hate anything, or, you know, they'll try to write this off, or God doesn't hate anything or anyone. It's not true. These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him. We've dealt with this word in the past, abomination, okay? It's not a good thing, it's something that the Lord abores, it's something that is disgusted, that makes him sick. And of course, verse 17, he talks about a proud look. We're not focusing there. We're going to jump down to verse 19 with the context in mind, okay? That God hates these things. These things are an abomination unto him, okay? That's the key right there. These things are an abomination unto him. Verse 19, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. What you need to understand is that God hates not only these things, okay, but these people that do them, okay? A false witness. Now, all of us have lied, okay? That's obvious. The Bible's clear on that. We've all told lies. We've all been misguided. We've all been gullible. We've all been ignorant, okay? We've all gone through those things, okay? But the type of false witness that I'm talking about today is you're certified, hunkered down, bonafide, false witness, these people. This is who they are. This is what they are, okay? And what does the Bible say here in verse 19? Well, a false witness that speaketh lies. That's what God hates, hates these things, okay? Notice what it says in verse 16. Back up and think about this. These six things doth the Lord hate. Now, look at verse 19 again. A false witness that speaketh lies. Now, what your soft soap, soy milk preacher will say, well, okay, really he just hates the sin, not the sinner, okay? He just hates the false witness part of it. He just hates the fact that he speaks lies, but the person he loves, okay? It's not true, okay? These things, which could be attributes or people, okay? Nouns, people, places, and things. All of these are included here. God hates this with a passion, okay? So this isn't something that you're just gonna be like stumbling onto, okay? Now, all of us have repeated bogus information. That doesn't necessarily make you a false witness like what we're talking about here. It just makes you ignorant. It makes you repeating things you shouldn't, okay? But notice what these people do at the end of the verse. So when he that soweth discord among brethren. What is discord? Discord is disagreement. Discord is lies. Discord could also be described as bad vibes. So what somebody like this will do is they'll come in amongst the brethren and they'll bring up a topic or they'll bring something up and say, this is what you should believe, okay? This is what you should believe. And then they'll go to somebody else and say something different and watch the outcome. I was watching this video on YouTube where these two cats were on a rooftop. Maybe some of you have seen it. It has been viral a while back. These two cats were just kind of circling each other. They weren't quite fighting yet. They were just checking each other out. And this raven, believe it or not, is watching this go down. And somebody's videotaping this. And this raven goes up to one of the cats and basically does something like pecks it on the head. And then the cat's like, what in the world's going on? But the raven's quick. And all of a sudden, the next thing you know, these two cats are fighting and they fall off the roof. And the raven's just looking. And you can almost see, if animals could laugh, if that was possible, you would definitely get that from the raven. Because the bird definitely understood what he was doing. And he started that fight and got him off the roof. And now he's up there comfortable all by himself. That's kind of how these people operate. And there's many different tactics that they use. There's many different things that they use. But the thing that you need to be aware of is they sow lies. They sow lies, meaning they intentionally do this. They have a process that they follow. They have an action plan that they follow. And they don't deviate from that action plan until they get the results that they want, which is destruction, which is fighting. God hates it when people sow discord among brethren. That is not the way that Christians are supposed to operate. That's not the way that we're supposed to behave. We're going to get more into that as we progress through the study this morning. Now go to Proverbs chapter 12 real quick. Proverbs chapter number 12. And look at verse number five. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Verse 17. Proverbs 12 verse number 17. It says this, he that speaketh truth showeth forth righteousness, but a false witness deceit. Okay. So again, how do you spot a false witness? Okay. Well, a false witness, what they put forth is going to be deceit. Whereas a person that speaks truth or righteousness, okay, they're going to show forth some righteous. And I'm not up here saying, well, if you're really saved, you're going to have the works. Okay. Please don't misunderstand me. We all know that's bogus. Okay. But here's the thing that I've noticed from being a pastor for almost five years now. You know, I'll see people that will get saved. Maybe they'll come to church for a short period of time and then they'll get discouraged. They'll get carried away. They'll get caught up in the things of the world and they'll just leave. And then I'll run into them out in town because I'm everywhere out in town all the time. And, you know, I'll see the smile on the face. Hey man, how are you doing? Oh, good. You know, just things got to me, whatever. And it's fine. It's like, cool. You know, that's fine. You know, we're praying for you. Hope to see you come back sometime. All is good. And then there's another group of people. Okay. There's another group of people that are just hell bent on sowing discord, trying to destroy people and tear people down. And they will not let go of the fact, we're still saved. We're serving God. We're Christians. Okay. That's the other group of people that I'm talking about. They push this religious facade. They push this narrative. Hey, we're believers. We're on board. We believe the same things, blah, blah, blah. But all they can do is destroy. That is all they're capable of. If you look at this verse here, a false witness shows deceit. That's what they do. They push lies. That's all they can do. Okay. So you're saying, are these people really hard to spot? Maybe at first, but eventually when you start studying the Bible and you learn the fact of these two types of people, it's not going to be that hard for you. Okay. You're going to see this. You're going to understand this. And you're going to be able to come to peace with this because as human beings, we have this tendency to have connections with one another. We want to get along. We want to be friends. We want to be cool. Okay. But you have to understand that the truth supersedes how you feel about another person. Okay. If you can come to terms with that, you are not going to be the type of person that gets sucked into, oh, which way do I go? Who's telling the truth? You're going to know because of these proverbs. You're going to know because of this study this morning, because the Bible is very clear on what a false prophet is and what they do and what their agenda is. Now go to Proverbs chapter number 14 and look at verse number five. Proverbs chapter 14, verse five. A faithful witness. What are we talking about today? False witnesses. Okay. So what is a faithful witness? Well, verse five, a faithful witness will not utter or I'm sorry, will not lie. Okay. But a false witness will utter lies. And of course, when you're doing your studies and you're rightly dividing the word of truth for all of sin and come short of the glory of God, we've all lied. Okay. But what this is talking about here, if you've been paying attention is a faithful witness is not going to be all about lies. Everything they say, everything they do, they're just constantly in the office, they're sorting out lies, sowing discord, trying to, you know, cause problems amongst the brethren. They're not going to be that type of people. It's just not the way it works. Now go to Proverbs chapter number 19 and look at verse number five. Proverbs 19, look at verse number five. A false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall not escape. So that's the encouragement that we have. Okay. That's where the rubber meets the road right here. A false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall not escape. Okay. That's the way to, that's what you have to look forward to. You get to understand that someday these people that are lying, these people that are sowing discord, these people that are trying to show themselves righteous and righteous people as wicked, they will be found out. That's what the Bible teaches at some point in time, they will be discovered. And as we always say, the proof is in the pudding. Okay. Look at verse, go over to chapter 25, last one for you. Last one. Proverbs 25, we're going to look at verse 18. Okay. Proverbs 25, look at verse number 18. A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a mall. What is a mall? Well, in the Bible, a mall is like a hammer. Okay. So he's a mall, meaning he pounds these things down. He takes his narrative and he goes to people that he thinks that he can manipulate and just keeps trying to pound his narrative into your brain. That is what he does. Okay. Breaks people down. What does it say after mall? And a sword, meaning he pierces, he cuts and a sharp arrow. Okay. That is what a false witness is. Those three things right there, they are hell bent on destruction, on destroying. They're not about restoration, they're about destruction. So understand that this morning, as we go through the study, keep your place in the Proverbs because we are going to end here this morning. Now go back to Matthew chapter number 26. Matthew chapter number 26. All right. Let's get started here this morning. Matthew 26, look at verse 57 and pay attention here. Verse 57. Okay. There's two groups that we're going to learn about here. And they, that had laid hold on Jesus, led them away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. Here's something you have to understand. Hey, false witnesses are always at work and they're always at work to recruit and to get people on their side so that they can one day bring you before a council of some sorts so that they can put you on trial, put you on blast. And that's what they're doing to Jesus here. They've already been at work trying to figure out a way to destroy him, to get him off the earth. We'll look at why here in a little while. Okay. But what I want you to know here is you may not have seen this, but there are two groups mentioned in this verse. One's explicit and one's implicit. Okay. Beginning of the verse, verse 57. And they, that had laid hold on Jesus. Well, we know that Jesus is the word of God. So you have these people here that wrongfully arrest him, that wrongfully lay hold on him, that grab him and try to make him do what they want him to do. And that's how a lot of people are today. That's how false witnesses operate. I'm telling you, they take things, they take the word of God and they arrest it. They put it on trial, they put it on council and they move it to where they want it to go. But then you have the other group. Okay. And the other group is the group that does not do that. The other group says, I'm going to let the word of God arrest me. I'm going to allow the word of God to dictate my actions, my thought process and my decisions. So those are the two groups that we have to deal with this morning. You've got the group that arrests the word of God and the group that allows the word of God to arrest them. Okay. Just like the Proverbs, you have a faithful witness in what they're about. You have the false witness in what they're about. Now, let's look at verse number 58. So Peter, again, still holding on. He's still holding on to that cling of hope that we're going to get out of Roman control. Jesus is going to get out of this. We're going to be like David and in that whole kingdom, it's going to be good. Okay. But of course he gets offended. Verse 59. Now, okay, now here, we're going to introduce this false Trinity that we're going to talk about. Okay. Now the chief priests and elders and all the council. Now look at what these guys do. These three groups of people. Look at what they do. Sought. Okay. What does that mean? Sought. It means looked for. Sought. False witness against Jesus to put him to death. Okay. Now why is this significant? Well, let's take a look here. You've got three groups. Okay. You've got the chief priests. Who are the chief priests? They're the top Levites. They're the top religious leaders. They're the ones responsible for carrying out the religion that God had given the nation of Israel. That's what they're supposed to be about. Okay. And here you have the top religious leaders of their day, not seeking truth, not seeking righteousness. What are they seeking? They're seeking false witness against Jesus. Now is that biblical? Is that okay? No, it's not. We all know that. Okay. But the problem is the people look, well, they're smarter than we are because they're priests. They're the top priests. They wear the long flowy garments. They've got the hats. They've got everything right. And it messes with people's minds. And here we have a perfect example in the Bible that these people are corrupt. Okay. Now, obviously I want you to keep your place in Matthew 26. We'll come back to it again, but go to Matthew 15. Matthew 15. So we see that the religious leaders, the chief priests, they place their religious expectations over the word of God. They've seen what Jesus is about, and they don't like it because in their minds, it goes against what they want and what they want to facilitate. What about the elders? What's specific here? What should we understand about the elders? Okay. Well, first of all, elders in a society should come together to provide wisdom to those that are younger because they've seen a lot. They've lived a lot. They've got great life experience. So they should be there to help. But what do the elders do during the time of Christ? Primarily, what do they like? What's the big deal with the elders here? Okay. Well, Matthew 15, look at verse number two. And so the Pharisees come up to Christ and they say this, why do thy disciples, and here's their ignorance, transgress the tradition of the elders for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Okay. So now you have this integral part of society, the elders who are supposed to supply wisdom to the nation, supply understanding to the nation and comfort. And they have become this group of people that have placed traditions over the word of God, tradition over wisdom, tradition over everything. So therefore they are corrupt. So what does this mean? We'll go to Matthew chapter five real quick. Matthew chapter number five. You can leave your place there in 15 and go to chapter number five. So, so far we've looked at the chief priests. You got this group. So you've got the religious sect of what's left of Israel, Judea, right? They're corrupt. They place their religious traditions or their religion, if you would, over the Bible. You have the elders, which represent the wisdom of the nation and they're placing their traditions over the word of God. Now you have the council and what's the council, what's special here about the council. Well, Matthew chapter five and verse 22 about towards the middle of the verse there. I just want you to focus on this. It says this. So Jesus says, whosoever shall say to his brother Rocka shall be in danger of the council. Okay. So what is the council? What was their job during this time? Well, they were the law enforcement. Okay. They were supposed to be a panel of people that got together that were non-biased. Their only bias was serving the word of God. Okay. Did this group of people, did this person, did this organization violate the word of God? Here's the punishment that we are going to issue. That was the job of the council. So now you have this evil Trinity. You have the chief priests, you have the elders and you have the council, which makes up their government. Okay. So you've got the religious part, you've got the governmental part, the wisdom, the laws, so on and so forth. And then you have the council who's supposed to enforce law. They're all corrupt. Okay. They're all saturated with false witnesses and what they are seeking instead of truth is falsehood. And that is obviously a huge problem. Now go back to Matthew chapter 26 real quick. And so instead of seeing the enforcement of the word of God, the teaching of the word of God, the application of the word of God, which is what those three groups should have been doing to make their nation great. Okay. They're seeking falsehood. They're seeking their own way and they're pushing their own agenda. Now back to the story here. Matthew 26 verse 59. It says this, now the chief priests and elders and all the council sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death. Let's take a look at why. Go to the gospel of John, John chapter 21. So why is it that they're seeking false witness? What did Jesus do that got them so upset that they feel they need to put him to death? Now, as you're turning to John chapter 21, remember the two groups of people that we learned about in the beginning of the sermon. You have those that arrest the word of God and try to control Jesus and try to control him and get him to do what they want. And then you have other people who allow the word of God to arrest them and make their decisions for them and give them counsel and so on and so forth. Okay. So let's answer why. Why is it that they finally come together to try to put him to death? Well, John chapter 21, there's several reasons. We're just going to look at one, look at verse 24. So this is the apostle John here writing this at the end of the gospel. And he says this, this is the disciple which testifies of these things and wrote these things. And we know that his testimony is true. Okay. So Jesus, what did he do? Preached truth, is truth, taught truth. John is confirming that for us. Verse 25. And there are also many other things which Jesus did. The witch, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. So because of the miracles, because of what Jesus did, okay, you read the gospels, we read these great miracles. It's like, okay, this is great. This is awesome. This is cool. Think about all the things that he did that you didn't get to read about that we don't know specifically. Okay. That is what got these people so upset that they wanted to kill him. And the only way that you're going to be able to accomplish that on this earth is to use false witnesses and to seek falsehood because we know that Jesus is truth, sought truth, preach truth. Now go to John chapter number eight. John chapter number eight. And I want to show you these two groups manifesting one more time here. John chapter eight, look at verse 28. So again, we talked about this last week. Jesus is preaching to a multitude here. Some believe, some are in the balances and some are literally just sold to the devil. They're, they're reprobate concerning the faith. Okay. So John chapter eight verse 28. Then said Jesus unto them, when you have lifted up the son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, who is he? Well, God the savior and that I do nothing. Here it is of my self. Okay. But as my father hath taught me, I speak these things. This is how people that are in Christ are supposed to operate. We see the word of God. It arrests our thinking, our worldly ways and changes us. That is what we desire to happen. That is what should happen. And that is again, not to say that if you're really saved, you're going to have the works. Okay. This is just simply a fact. Christ was the example of how we should be. What does he do? He points to the father. He points to God. He says, I'm not here of my own agenda. I am here to serve my father. I and my father are one. Jump down to John chapter eight, verse 38. It says this. I speak that which I have seen with my father. Now obviously he's God and he is seeing all truth. Okay. But he's teaching us something here. Okay. What has he seen? Truth. What have you seen being a believer? You have seen truth. You have accepted the word of God. Okay. Same thing. So he says, verse 38. I speak that which I have seen with my father and ye. So now guess which group he's addressing in the crowd here. Okay. Well, we'll take a look at the rest of the verse and ye do that which ye have. Here it is. Seen with your father. Remember these two groups of people. Again, you have this group of people that arrests Jesus, that arrests the word of God and tries to control it and do what man wants it to do. And then you have the other group, the group that sees the word of God and allows that to in essence arrest them, change their way of thinking and how they look at the world and shape their worldview. And Jesus looks at this group of people and he says, ye do that which ye have, look at this, seen with your father. Now who was their father? Well, sure wasn't God. It was Satan himself. So what I'm trying to tell you here is the second group of people, these false witnesses, they do what they have seen with their eyes, what they have seen with their hearts. Okay. Actions do speak louder than words in many cases. Okay. So that's what he's trying to show us here. Now look at verse number 39. They answered and said unto Abraham, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, if you were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. Okay. What I want you thinking right now, false witnesses, false witnesses. What do they do? They try to destroy. They sow discord. They kill. They use a sword, a mall. They are dangerous. Okay. What is Jesus telling these people? He's saying, if you were really the children of Abraham, if you were really saved, if you were really born again, look at verse 40, but now you seek to kill me a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. I'm telling you, these false witnesses, what they do is destroy. They do not restore. They are about destruction. That is what he's telling us. Now go back to Matthew chapter number 26. So he's saying clearly, look, if you were really saved, you wouldn't attempt to kill me. You wouldn't attempt to consistently, constantly seek a method or a way to destroy me. And I would submit to you that more often than not, us being in Christ, okay, us being saved are going to experience the same thing. You will encounter people that will not want to help you, that will not want to work with you, but constantly try to destroy you. And I'm trying to tell you, this is unbiblical. This is not good. This is dangerous. These people are not saved. I don't care how many times they tell you they're saved. I don't care if they can recite the gospel presentation. They are false witnesses. That is what they are. The only thing they can do is seek to kill. They cannot seek to learn. They cannot seek to help. Why? Because they have only seen one thing, and that is what their father has taught them. So hopefully that makes sense. Matthew 26, look at verse 59 again. Now, the chief priests and elders and all the council sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death. Verse 60, but found none. Okay, but found none. Now, here's where we differ from Christ, because we have the old man. We have the old nature. All of us do things from time to time that could be exploited, that could be, look at, oh, you said this. You got me mad just one day. You sat in my seat. You called me a name. You offended me. Okay, we all do these things to each other, which is why we have so many guidelines in the Bible to live by, how we're supposed to treat one another, how we're supposed to edify one another so that we don't fall into these traps. Okay, but with Christ, it says, but found none. Yea, though many false witnesses came. Notice that, many false witnesses came. Here's one thing that you guys could be sure of. There is never going to be a shortage of false witnesses against the body of Christ, against Christ himself. They're always there, but there's levels to this game. There are levels to this game. Read the rest of the verse. Okay, yet they found none. At the last came two false witnesses. So here you go. Okay, you've got many false witnesses. You guys are coming in like, hey, yeah, he said this, and this counsel here, they're like, wish that was true, but that's really dumb, and it's just not going to fly. But here you have two special witnesses. Like, we think we can put them down. We got this figured out. Verse 61, and said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. Okay, pay attention to this. Let's read it again. So these two guys, I'm assuming they're dudes, these two false witnesses, and said, this fellow said. Okay, so here are these two false witnesses show up, and they're like, hey, this fellow, this Jesus guy right here, here's what he said. He said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. Now, is that what Jesus said? Did he say, I am able to destroy this temple and build it again in three days? It sounds like what he said. He did say it, but it's not accurate. Let's go take a look at it. Okay, go to John chapter number two to find the answer. Is that what he actually said? John chapter number two, look at verse number 18. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, what sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things. What's going on? Well, you've got the Jews and what do they want? Oh, they want a sign, don't they? They want to see a sign. I want that proof. Show me proof that you are who you say that you are. We need to see some proof. We need some signs. And here's the response that Jesus gives them. Verse 19, Jesus answered and said unto them. Okay, now here's what he actually said. Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up. Okay, look at verse 18. First, what do you got? Four words there. Then answered the Jews. Jews want a sign. Okay, what does Jesus say in response to the Jews? Verse 19, destroy this temple. Okay, so the Jews are asking for a sign and Jesus says to the Jews, okay, you want a sign? Hey, destroy this temple. Okay, did he say, I will destroy this temple and build it up in three days and that's the proof that I am who I am? No, he said, you Jew, you destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up. Which by the way, who killed the Jews? I mean, I'm sorry, who killed Jesus? Well, obviously this is foreshadowing here that the Jews did it. Of course, your Zionist today. Oh no, no, no, no. It was just the Romans. Okay, it wasn't our beloved Jew. Jew, yes, Jew, we love a Jew. Okay, no, no, no, no. Read the Bible. Okay, Jesus is obviously saying, well, destroy this temple in the three days, I'll raise it up again. It's pretty obvious. Okay, who was at fault? I mean, read Matthew 26 for crying out loud. Okay, read this council. Chief priests, are those Romans? Elders, were those Romans? The council, were those Romans? No. Yeah, they carried out the plan because the world will of course take anything that false prophets, false witnesses give them. Now look at verse 20. Then said the Jews, 40 and six years was this temple in building and wilt thou not rear it up in three days. I'm sorry. And wilt thou rear it up in three days. So there's, they're like mocking him here, but he spake of the temple of his body. Okay. So one more time, back to Matthew 26. So Jesus simply says, Hey, you want to see a sign, destroy this temple in the three days, I will raise it again. Jesus is God. Death couldn't hold him. No one could hold him. No one can arrest the word of God. He does what he does. He does what he wants. It is what it is. It is impossible. It is a futile thing to think that you can get the word of God to do what you want. And this is what false witnesses miss. And so to compensate and to save face amongst people, what they do is they quote a little bit of what you said and they twist it, or they leave out a word here to make it seem like they know what they're talking about. Because people will remember, he did say something about the temple. Yeah, he did say that. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us that again, Jesus. You know, and of course, that's going to be the response here. Look at Matthew 26 verse 62. And the high priest arose and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee? Okay. We're going to talk about that. There's a lot in this verse here. Well, first of all, false witnesses are driven by what? They're driven by something, and it sure isn't the truth. False witnesses can only hear what fits their narrative. That is all they can hear, right? That's these two special guys. Their testimony here, their false witness here is so convincing that the high priest is like, got it. And he shoots up, look, gets up. He's like, yeah. And the high priest arose and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? Right. Remember many false witnesses came in. Okay. And it doesn't say that the high priest arose. So they're just like, I'm not going to be able to use that. No, I'm not going to be able to use that. Finally these two guys come in, they got something special and they're like, yes, this is it. Answer this, Jesus. Answer this right now. Go to Proverbs chapter number 16. Proverbs chapter number 16. Just remember, you got all these false witnesses, but you got these two guys are on another level. They think they've got it figured out. They think this is good to go. They've got them. They got them trapped. It's game over. So what is it about these guys that we really need to understand here? Proverbs 16. Look at verse number 27. We're getting somewhat close to being done here. Okay. Proverbs 16 verse 27. I want you to really think about this. An ungodly man diggeth up evil. Let's say that again. Now what is an ungodly person? Is it somebody who's godly? No. An ungodly person. What do they do? What do they do? Dig up evil and in his lips there is as a burning fire. Okay. So if you take this ungodly man who could be a false witness, could be whatever, tailbearer, things that we're going to look at. Does he have a literal fire in his mouth? Is he like a dragon? Can he blow out flames and literally scorch paper and wood? No. So what is this fire about? What is this verse really representing? Well, it represents his narrative, his agenda. These ungodly people have a destination. They have a target in mind. They want to destroy and it's usually the brethren. It's the saved. And so how do they do it? Well, an ungodly man diggeth up evil. And as things typically go for most preachers, I got a perfect story about this. Okay. I'm not going to drop too many names, but I'm going to tell this story because why not? Right. Stories help us understand. Illustrations I think are great. So it's been a few years now. We had a teenager in this church. We wanted to help him out, wanted to see the best for him. Things didn't work out. He had to go. I would say he's kicked out. He did quit, but he sent me some messages after he left and I told him don't ever come back. Okay. I was upset and rightfully so. I'm not going to say all the reasons why right now, but it is what it is. This person is rightfully kicked out. Okay. Well, fast forward about two years. Okay. After maybe a year and a half, I don't quite have the timeline down, but about two years after, we'll just say two years after this guy leaves. Don't hear a peep from him. Finally starts messaging people because we have some other people leave the church who, you know, thought they were something special and really weren't. And so these people leave here. Okay. And they've got all these lies. There are many false witnesses. I'm dead serious. Many false witnesses are throwing out all these crazy accusations, things that are just wild. Like I wanted to purposely destroy this church so that I could move to the East coast and set up another one. Okay. If that's true, then why is God filling our church up again? It doesn't make any sense. It's totally bogus. Okay. So their counsel within that group, they're like, no, that's not gonna work. No, that's not gonna work. No, that's not gonna work. Okay. We're going to just keep saying it and throwing these feelers out there. Well, finally, you know, they run into this kid because they all are friends now and they all go to the same church. So that's how this works by the way. Okay. Birds of a feather flock together. You'll learn this in life. They find each other. The trash always goes to the dump. Okay. That's where it is. It always goes to the dump. It always works out that way. So I'm just going to cut a lot of the story out. So last, I think it was last week. I want to say it was last week, maybe the week before. It doesn't matter. Very recent. I get a text message from this kid, right? And he's like, Hey, I thought I saw you. I thought I saw you over here in Cuna. I was like, no, that wasn't me. That was so-and-so. Okay. And I asked him how he's doing. I was very polite and very nice. Okay. And I'll show you why we'll read the verse, why I did that. And I'll show you guys why I did that in a minute. His responses were nice. You know, just said how things go and said things are going great. You know, when we're going soul-wanting now, we've got more groups consistently than we've ever had as a church. I'm not lying. It's just what it is. Okay. And we're like literally demolishing these apartment complexes. As we learned yesterday, we demolished most of the apartments in Ontario, did one of the biggest ones I've ever done in, in Napa. And then we went and demolished one in Meridian. Okay. We were doing good. Now I didn't tell him this because this just happened yesterday, but on the regular, that's what we're doing now. We're doing very well. Okay. We're doing very good. And his response, I could tell, was not happy. So I come home, tell Jessica, hey, get ready for an attack. He's going to do something. He's going to do something going on. Because what he's going to do is he's going to take that and go tell his friends who like to call the Snakers. Okay. He's going to go tell them, you know, because the story was we were supposed to close down because they were the cream of the crop and this church couldn't run without them. And they did all the soul-wanting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So of course that narrative has now plummeted. It's a lie. It's proven. The proof is in the pudding. Okay. It doesn't work. So what this kid does, and he's done this one time before somebody, he starts finding people right on Facebook. Oh, I've never seen that face before. Is that Josh? Right. So he gets on, they start researching, looking up every single Josh on Facebook, look up every single Evan on Facebook. Okay. Got to find them. Got to find them. They start scouring and auditing Facebook. Oh, here's something I have in common. And he reaches out to this, to brother Josh. And hey, we know some of the same people. We know some of the same people. Okay. And then what he does is sends a picture of something I'm not even going to describe. It's absolutely pornographic and horrible. Okay. And here's why he did that. Okay. Going back to what I said earlier about how people make mistakes, honest mistakes. So one of the things that I often do is my phone will go off. Hey, you got these Facebook messages and blah, blah, blah. And it's usually sodomites and people that don't like us. So I get on there, you know, I might be at a stoplight, which isn't good. Okay. But I do that, you know, during the week, I've got my work tablet, I've got my work phone going off and I'm trying to take care of some church stuff. Right. Because if this stuff builds up, it's just a nightmare to deal with. Cause these, what these freaks do is they just spam me. Okay. So I'll be on there and I'll be like remove, remove, remove, remove, you know, be looking, hey, look at the stoplight, you know, and I probably fat fingered something. Okay. And I fat fingered this Facebook page. I'll just say the name of it. It's called dirty burning. Now we thought it had something to do with Bernie Sanders. Apparently it's just a page of jesting. Just, just worldly junk. I don't know. I didn't look at it when I learned of it. I told Jessica, Hey, can you get that off? Cause I don't even know how to do it. Just get that off the page, you know? Like, yeah, yeah, sure. And then we liked another page. It was Neil Tyson Degrassi. Yeah. Tyson no grassroots. How about that? Okay. I can remember that. Okay. Some atheist guy. And so a few months ago, because I had done this, what these people who had left and apparently these were on our church Facebook page before everybody left. So what these fools do is screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, save, save, save. We're going to use this later on to try to get them. Okay. Instead of coming to me and saying, Hey, you know, there's these two things on the Facebook page. Maybe you should be aware of and, you know, just get them off. Which would be nice. No, no, no. Instead, what Mr. Snowflakeers decides to do, we'll just call him that, is he's got, finally after four months, man, I got you. I've got you. What was it? Yeah. Use it as ammunition. Exactly. Right. I got you. Right. Four months after, after all their, you know, stupid, many lies just didn't pan out and they couldn't find anything. He's like, I got him. I'm going to, I'm going to email pastor Thompson. I'm going to email pastor Menes. Finally, I got you. You're a pervert pastor of Boise. Okay. Now keep in mind on our page where we're two things that were liked. One was the atheist guy, Neil, no grassroots, and then this dirty Bernie thing. Okay. Whatever that is. I don't know. Keep in mind when, when, when we saw it, we didn't look at it. We just figured out something to do with Bernie Sanders, whatever. Just accidentally click it off. No harm, no foul. Okay. No issue. What these fools did though, they started searching through the page and screenshotting horrible things around there. Things that I think are horrible and then emailing them to people. Okay. Not realizing how foolish that made them look. These other pastors like, that's all we need to know. If you're willing to go to those depths and look at that sort of stuff and send it and try to defile your brethren, it's obvious who you are and who you are is not a believer. Who you are is not in Abraham because Jesus said, if you were in Abraham, you would not try to kill me. We are in Christ. And what false witnesses do is they look and they gather things that they think will kill you and hurt you. That is what they do. That is how they operate. This isn't a mistake. This isn't like, oh, you know, I would just accidentally stumble on this and believe some false information. No, they did this intentionally on purpose to try to hurt. But all it did was actually just hurt themselves because now no one wants to take them serious. And it's absolutely absurd. But here's the thing that I want to know. Okay. First of all, why is Mr. Snakers who's in his 40s sharing images like this with a teenager? But I'm the pervert. Can someone please help me understand this? I need help. I need someone to explain this to me. And of course I'm being facetious. I already understand it very well. You're the pervert. Because who in here, who in here right now would take images like that and share them with somebody else, share them with somebody who's a teenager? Who would do that? No one. No one would do that. No one would do that in here. No one. Second, why didn't he title his email? Hey, Jones is the atheist because I had an atheist thing on our Facebook page. You're the atheist pervert, Pastor Boise. Why did you just pick that one? I'll tell you why. Because you have an agenda. Because you're an abomination to God. Because you're a false witness. Because all that you can do is destroy because you were not in Christ, you were out of Christ. That's why. That's why. This is the harsh reality of studying the Bible. Is that sometimes you learn who people really are based off of their actions. Sometimes it is possible and in this situation it is definitely possible. So there's that. Look at the verse one more time. An ungodly man diggeth up evil and in his lips there is as a burning fire. Now on our Facebook page, okay, what false prophet alive in this world today would advertise that? Nobody. Nobody would purposely be like, oh, I'm going to use our Facebook page to let people know that we like all these atheist guys or whatever. Over time what they don't know is that I've accidentally fat fingered things about Top Golf because you get recommendations from business all over here. One was Nirvana. Do we have a rock band up here? Now I can see worldly churches doing that and some of them do. But we find these things on there and we get them off. Other times people send us things, hey, Pastor Jones, my name is so and so. And the message will look good for like the first few sentences. I'll open it and then boom, it's something bad. It's like, oh man, he got me. You know what I mean? That happens to us all the time. Sometimes we'll get packages in the mail and it'll say to Pastor Jones, you know, with love from so and so and we're like, okay, open it up. And it's just horrible stuff. Okay. It happens. It happens all the time. So absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely absurd. But that is a very good example of what false witnesses do. All they can do is look at information and interpret it in a way that is going to further their agenda, close distance between them and their goal, which is always destruction. Now go to Proverbs chapter number 26. Proverbs chapter number 26. Yeah. And by the way, you know, these people, they're just constantly trying to mess with people in this church, just constantly, even to this very day, you know, even to this very day, they hear something good that we do and they're like, we have to shut them down. We have to destroy them. We have to do something to get rid of him, to get him out of here. They've even gone to the links of trying to mess with someone's marriage in this church. Is that Christ like, is that what Jesus would do? Is that restoration? Is that part of the mission of the church of edifying the brethren? Absolutely not. That is horrible. And like I always say, I'm going to say this again, the proof is in the pudding. It is what it is. Proverbs 26, look at verse number 20. Where no wood is there, the fire goeth out. So where there is no tail bearer, the strife ceaseth. We've had numerous people here described our church culture as being this now where no tail bearer is where you don't have a person revealing gossips and secrets all the time to people. Guess what? The strife ceaseth. It goes away. It's gone. Okay. A lot of you probably seen this in your workplaces. You've got that one guy that's just constantly gossiping. He gets kicked out. He gets moved to another crew and all of a sudden peace and harmony restores. Look at verse 21. As coals are to burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. So why is it that this kid last week sends me a message, all nice. Okay. And then like a couple of days later attempts to send one of our church members a message to try to get him to leave. What's up with that? But you're the spiritual one. You're the hyper spiritual one. You're the super Christian. I think not. That's not what Christians do. You're being a tail bearer, contentious. Verse 22. The words of a tail bearer are as wounds and they go down into the innermost part of the belly. See, this is what they understand. This is what they understand. Their actions have an effect and that's what they look for. Verse 23. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a pot shirt covered with silver dross. So again, these burning lips, these lips that right there, they're just burning with desire to start trouble. Okay. It says in a wicked heart, like a pot shirts, like a chunk, a sharp piece of pottery covered with silver dross. It looks silverish. It looks shiny. It looks valuable. Okay. But it's not. It cuts. It pierces. It's broken. Verse 24. He that hateth, dissembleth with his lips and layeth up deceit within him. Let me say this again. He that hateth. Are you supposed to hate your brother? Are you supposed to be a false witness against your brother or against anyone for that matter? No, you're not. Look, the Bible is so full of clues on how to interpret human behavior that if you would just listen to them and read them and internalize them, you would get very good at understanding who people are. Understanding that when people say they're saved, but they have these certain actions, you'll know that cannot be the case. Say, oh, you're preaching works. I'm not preaching works. I'm preaching discernment. I'm preaching discernment. You know, oftentimes we, you know, get so caught up in this stuff that we just think, oh, well, they said they're saved. So they're definitely 100% saved. Look, I'm here to tell you that is not always the case. There are a lot of people in this world that say they're saved. They can tell you and quote you the right Gospel. Okay, but they'll turn around and cut your head off if you give them the opportunity. If they think it'll further their agenda and make them glorious and make them powerful. What does this say? He that hateth. Okay, go read 1st John and tell me what John said about a person that hateth his brother whom he has seen. Am I supposed to expect that he loves the Lord who he hath not seen? Learn your Bible. Understand what this is saying. He that hateth dissembles with his lips. So these people that hate one another, these people that hate you, they take apart and they do it with their lips. They do it with their mouth, with the way that they speak and their agenda and layeth up to see it within them. So they just keep interpreting information and what they see and what they hear in a way that rests well with them, which is deceit. Just like these false witnesses that are doing to Jesus Christ. This fellow said right here that he will destroy the temple and rear it up in three days. It's not what he said. They took part of what he said and added to it after subtracting the most important part where Jesus was responding to them and saying you destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And of course not even understanding the true application that he spake of his body, not the building. Verse 25. When, and here it is, you say why were you nice to this kid? Well here's one reason why. Memorize this verse. When he speaketh fair, when he speaketh fair, look at the next part of that verse. Believe him not. Believe him not. Believe him not. For there are seven abominations in his heart. So when I, look I already know this individual. I already know, this is the thing about being a pastor. A lot of times you know things about people that not everyone else gets to hear, see or know or understand. Okay. And I see this. I already know there are seven abominations in this person's heart. Which is why when he reached out I responded the way that I did. Didn't believe him. And I called it like it was. I said this is what he's going to do this week and I was right. Am I special? No. Am I super wicked smart? Absolutely not. Okay. But I've got something that is absolutely super smart. I have the word of God. I believe the word of God. I understand these things very well because that's my job. That's your job. And so when these things happen I'm not surprised. I'm like oh yeah of course that's what he's going to do. Okay. When he speaketh fair, who's he? Well this ungodly person, this tail bearer. This person has a burning desire to destroy and take a part with his lips. Okay. When he speaks fair, believe him not. Guess what? Solomon definitely would have understood this because his father David went through this on a massive scale. How many times did Saul try to kill David? Several times. And that's what they'll say. Well we're more like Saul. You know, there are a bunch of Sauls. Some of them are. But some of them are just straight up devils. Okay. And sometimes the Sauls find the devils and they can get along in this life. Okay. I'm just saying. Verse 25. When he speaketh fair, believe him not. For there are seven abominations in his heart. The knife is coming. It will pierce you. It will stab you. It will hurt you. Verse 26. Whose hatred is covered by deceit. Okay. They cover it by deceit. His wickedness shall be showed before what? The whole congregation. So I can't believe I heard this from one of these clowns left. I can't believe that Pastor Jones will put this stuff on Facebook that these people are checked out. He's putting their business. Do something about it. I've got the right. Whose hatred is covered by deceit. His wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. How are we supposed to learn if we just sweep things under the rug all the time? We're not going to learn that way. We learn through experience. Verse 27. Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. Amen to that. Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. And he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. That's how I can sleep very well at night. That's how you can sleep very well every night. Because these are facts. These people will be exposed and destroyed. They do it to themselves. Verse 28. A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it. And a flattering mouth worketh ruin. So again, tying back to what we just said. When he speaketh fair, believe him not. He's flattering to cover his deceit. And by the way, once you go through something like this with someone, you can never trust them. You can never look at them the same because you don't know how many abominations are in their heart. It is what it is. One more verse and we're done. Proverbs chapter 17. So go back to Proverbs chapter number 17. A false witness is a wicked doer. Jesus confirmed that. It's that the works of your father ye do. Why do they do the works of their father? Because that is what they have what? Seen. That is what they have seen. Look at Proverbs 17 verse number four and we're going to be done right here. A wicked doer. You say, hey pastor, I want some discernment. Can you help me maybe spot a wicked doer? Somebody who's real wicked? Yeah. This verse right here. A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips. A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips. Is that somebody who's had Botox injections? No. Okay. It's not what he's talking about here. False lips. Somebody who speaks lies. A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips and a liar giveth ear to a false tongue. What is this teaching us here? Wicked people give heed to false lips. Let's pull back and just look at a very basic worldly example. There are videos out there and there are people even around here that will tell you that Joe Biden rescued this country. These people exist and I don't know about you, but my paychecks, even though they're more than they were last year, seem to be going less further than they did even four or five years ago. Okay. Something's not right. We all know that. We all get that. Okay. But yet you have this administration and the elites lying through the media constantly to people and you have people that are just like, oh yes, I believe that wholeheartedly without even checking facts. Okay. You know what you're going to find about a lot of those people? They're extremely wicked. Extremely wicked. Now let's pull it in a little bit here. A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue. This isn't like, oh, you're naughty. You're not getting a Christmas present. You know, this is somebody who's straight up foul, who's straight up nasty, who's straight up a devil, a lying narcissist piece of junk. That is what he's talking about here. And a wicked doer, here's one way to spot them, is they give heed. They give their attention to false lips. So they give attention without verification or verification. They give attention without verification. One call, that's all. And I saw this about a year ago. Okay. It was on a Wednesday night. It was on a Wednesday night. There was a family here. All was well, super happy, seemed very comfortable. After that service, one phone call, all of a sudden the rest of us are blocked. All of a sudden there's this person on Facebook whose first name is Sky and her last name rhymes with NASCAR. Okay. All of a sudden I get a phone call from some people in Las Vegas that she heard that I'm bad and everybody that knew I'd be out of stay away from me. Okay. One call and all of a sudden I'm getting phone calls from people in Las Vegas that I'm dangerous. One call. And I thought about that and I said, oh, it makes sense. How is it that you could take a family here super happy with tears in her eyes, I just love how you treat my kids, to all of a sudden you're the devil, your girls are terrible and blah, blah, blah. How does that happen on a dime? How do people flip like that? I'll tell you how. They're not, they didn't flip. They just got exposed because a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips. They pay attention to lies. That's what they do. Okay. So somebody who's just believing lies without verification, because what does the Bible teach? The Bible teaches that we are supposed to try, that we are supposed to test the spirits to see whether they are true, to see whether something is true or false. We're called to be verifiers through the word of God. We take the word of God and we take information and we filter that through the word of God. There is a process to go through in Matthew chapter 18, if you've got beef with somebody. Okay. And I have yet to see that process go forth here in its entirety. That doesn't happen very often. So what a wicked doer does, they bypass that because they don't understand that. They don't like that. They get a phone call. Oh, yep. Great. Let's run with it. Good to go. Okay. That's enough. You said it. I love it. I believe it. Okay. And then they start spreading and spewing their hatred and their lies to as many people as they think will buy them. But understand one thing, a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips. That's what they do. You understand, if you can understand this, you're going to be able to spot these people very quickly. And the liar giveth ear to what? To a naughty tongue. So they give their eyes, they give their ears, they give their brains to lies. Attention without verification. You say, great. What makes a false witness tick? Let's finish this up here. What makes a false witness tick? And the answer is very simple. Their agenda. And their agenda is to kill and destroy. What made these two guys in Matthew chapter 26, what made them the most successful false witnesses out of the many? And that was they had the clearest objective. They had the clearest vision and the best way to try to manipulate something that happened. They were the more seasoned of the false witnesses, if you will. That's what makes them tick. What makes them tick is not truth. What makes them tick is seeing people hurt and destroyed. But what makes us tick? What makes us tick? What makes a faithful witness tick? Righteousness. Seeing people change. Seeing people go from not believing the truth to believing the truth. And then taking those same people and saying, hey, here's the lens. Here's how you ought to look at the world through the word of God. And then watching them and teaching them how to do that. Okay. Taking people that are broken, maybe taking people that do have issues with starting beef with one another or just have personality problems and taking them and correcting them and making them better through the word of God and seeing these righteous changes in our brethren. That's what makes us tick. What makes us tick is restoration. What makes them tick is destruction. If you can remember this, you will not get bit or destroyed by these people. Let's stop right there and bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for your truth that you bring us every single week. Just pray that you bless the rest of our day, Lord, and everything that we have going on today and bring us again safely tonight. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.