And as you do so, I do bring you greetings from quite a number of brethren across the U.S. who I had the opportunity to meet with, have fellowship with, preach there, and a number are partners with us in various areas of ministry, including the ministry of the African Christian University. They remember us in prayer often and consider us as very dear partners in the Great Commission. So I bring you greetings from them. If you were here the last time I preached at KBC, which would have been in the month of February, I began a series of messages, having taken a break from the series in Ephesians. And the new series is basically dealing with the nature of false repentance. the nature of false repentance. And what we are doing is really just looking at the life of Saul, and not the whole of his life, but merely chapter 15 of 1 Samuel. That's all. Just chapter 15. And so far, we have seen two messages. The first was dealing with what true obedience is, true obedience. And it is simply carrying out the commands of God. That's all it is. God says, do this, you do it. God says, don't do this, you don't do it. That's all that true obedience is. But secondly, we went on to see the response that those who are truly godly give to sin. And we saw it from the example of Samuel when he was told that Saul had sinned. And I will want us to see the way in which he responded. I will read from this one all the way to this 12a. And you will notice that first of all, he got angry over the sin. Secondly, he was grieved about the sin. And thirdly, he urgently wanted to attend to it. So let me quickly read those verses and then today we are looking at verse 12 and verse 13. So I begin with 1 Samuel chapter 15 and verse 1. And Samuel said to Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel. Now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telheim. 200,000 men on foot and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Canaanites, go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. for you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Canaanites departed from among the Amalekites, and Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as shore, which is east of Egypt. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fattened cows, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. Verse 10, the word of the Lord came to Samuel, I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments." And here is Samuel's response to this news. And Samuel was angry. And he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And this is where we will now begin this message this morning. And it was told Samuel, Saul came to Carmel and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord." So we've seen there once again the way in which Samuel responded to the news of Saul living in sin. And it was the fact that he was angry, and then he was grieved, and then finally he quickly acted in order to address this issue. Well, today we are seeing the contrast with respect to soul and sin. And the very first aspect that we see is the way in which he lied about this. He lied concerning this matter. And so I want to give it to you as a statement, a maxim that you can take for granted, and it is this, the title of my message. Lying lips betray false repentance. Lying lips betray false repentance. Let's quickly begin by seeing the context of the lying. And the context of the lying is when a person thinks that you are ignorant of their evil act. When they think you are ignorant of their evil act. And this is what we see happening to Saul. at the point when Samuel shows up he just takes it for granted that Samuel is ignorant of what he has done and hence he goes into the lying. Notice in verse 12b that in fact Samuel already knew not only from God but he also knew from these individuals that spoke to him. Verse 12, Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning and it was told Samuel Saul came to Carmel and behold he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to give God. Well it wasn't the first time that Saul, Samuel got to know what Saul had done. Because Samuel was a prophet, God had already told him. that I regret that I have made Saul a king. He has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandment. So it's fairly evident that by this time Samuel already knew that he was confronting a sinner. He was confronting somebody who had disobeyed the Lord. But as we are also already told, that while searching for Saul, while following him up where he was, individuals had told Samuel of this act of self-glorification on the part of Saul. That he had even set up a monument for himself. In other words, Saul was now living as if life revolved around himself, not around God, not around God's purposes, but rather, it is me. I am now king. And surely, this is an opportunity for me to glorify myself, to honor myself, And hence, he even erected a monument to his owner. Well, as he shows up then before Saul, Saul is not aware of all this. Because you can be sure that if he knew what Samuel knew, He wasn't going to be speaking in terms of, I have obeyed the Lord's commandments. He would have faked some kind of repentance. He would have put up some kind of display or play that would have been meant to give Samuel the thought that this man is genuinely repentant of what he has done. But he did not know. And friends, this is what sets up those who are not repentant to tell lies, to be hypocritical. It is when they think that others don't know. It is when they think that you don't know about the sin that they have committed or the sins that they are living in. But ultimately, that's where the problem lies. It is because, you see, human eyes and human knowledge, that's secondary. What matters the most is the eye of God. God knows everything about us. He knows what we say behind closed doors. He knows what we do when the lights are out and no human being can see what is happening there. God knows what is taking place in your cell phone behind that pin. He knows everything that is there. So when we begin to function on the basis of human beings don't know, therefore let me live like this, let me do this, we've missed the point of life altogether. After all, the greatest judgment that we'll undergo is not a human judgment. It is judgment under God himself. And on that day, everything, to borrow the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, everything will be made bare. So why even begin pretending with fellow human beings? Why? Individuals who live in false repentance, the bottom line is they are blind to this. that God knows the way I live. God knows the words I speak. God knows the thoughts I entertain in my mind. But having seen that, let's go on to notice the response of Saul himself. And it teaches us two quick points. First of all, false repentance tends to cover itself with high-sounding but empty religious phrases. High-sounding but empty religious phrases. This is seen in the high-sounding but empty phrase given by Saul as he notices Samuel approaching him. Verse 13, And Samuel came to Saul and said to him, Blessed be you to the Lord. Rather, and Saul said to him, blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. I'm particularly interested in just the first phrase, blessed be you to the Lord. What does that mean? Oh, as the Bible say, Blessed be you to the Lord. Have you heard a phrase like that? Now I know the New International Version says, the Lord bless you. Perhaps we can phrase it that way. Or as the New King James Version puts it, blessed are you of the Lord. But actually the phrase was, as it has been rightly pointed out here, blessed be you to the Lord. Obviously Saul, at this point, was simply wanting to be, to sound religious. To sound like somebody who is working with the Lord. It is a kind of phrase when you meet someone who is, as it were, fervently serving the Lord, and the moment you meet, he's already going, praise the Lord! Hallelujah! Amen! And you think, wow! This guy must have come out of a powerful quiet time to be speaking like this. Or, if the person knows you're a Calvinist, he begins to tell you about tulip, isn't it? Immediately, you are together. It's telling you total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, the final perseverance of the saints. full of theology and full of doctrine. Or as we say, the five solas. He wants to share with you these things in high sounding phrases. Or he wants to start praising you for what you are doing as a an elder, or a deacon, or a ministry leader, or a home group leader, or whatever it is that, you know, things are going very well in the things of the Lord in the church, in the home group, in this ministry, because of your leadership and so on. It's all again covering oneself. with religious talk, when really behind the sins, there's spiritual sickness, spiritual sickness. Blessed are you or blessed be you to the Lord. And friends in church, it's so easy. to deceive one another. Because we grow up with these phrases and we use them a lot. That even a person who is in a terribly backslidden state will produce these words quite easily. When really, they are rotten on the inside. Let me ask whether this describes you, whether this is the cloak in which you hide your spiritual bankruptcy. Talking doctrine, talking theology, Giving the person that you are speaking to the impression that all is well because of religious jargon Praise the Lord Hallelujah God is good all the time all the time. God is good can she on the inside you are in compromise, you are in sin, you are spiritually bankrupt. Does this describe you? Because again, you can cheat other human beings, but you can't cheat God. God knows the actual condition in which you are. You can imagine if someone did not know what God had told him. If someone did not know that God has said to him that Saul has turned back from following me. In other words, Saul has backslidden. Saul has not performed my commandments. In other words, Saul is living in sin. If Samuel did not know this and he was just hearing, blessed be you to the Lord, he would have thought, wow, here is a man who is walking with God. But Samuel could not be deceived. He had heard from God himself directly. He knew the situation and we will follow this story in due season. But that's the first. It is these high sounding phrases, but they are empty of their actual meaning. Empty. They are like a resounding gong. They sound high, but they're actually empty altogether. But the second, is that false repentance further shows itself by blatantly lying through false claims of obedience. Blatantly lying through false claims of obedience. Listen to the claim that Saul made here. He says, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. I have performed the Lord's commandment. Well, let's just go back a few verses. I regret that I have met Saul King, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. God himself is saying, he has not performed my commandments. Saul is saying, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Who is telling the truth here? Obviously, it's God. God is telling the truth. And as we shall see later on in this story, yes, God was revealing reality. But this man was telling a lie. Now, let's dissect this a little bit. Because in a sense, he's also telling the truth. But it's a half-truth. It's a half-truth. The other side is disgusting. And therefore, he will not want you to see it. So let's read again the verses that we read earlier on. Chapter 15 and verse 3. Now go, this is Samuel telling Saul what God had told him. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. All that they have. Number two, do not spare them and kill both man and woman, child and infant. Saul and the people spared Agath, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fattened cows, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. That was not according to God's instruction. It wasn't. In fact, what they destroyed is what we are told here. The end of verse 9, all that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. That's what they did. That's why I'm calling it a half-truth. Saul said what he did. which he knew was acceptable to Samuel. But he was totally quiet about what he did not do that he knew Samuel needed to know and if he knew, he would not be pleased with him. The truth is, that he only carried out part of the commandment. And it was the part that was convenient to him. I can get rid of this which is useless and worthless and despised. This I can get rid of. But that which he knew was for his personal profit. I'm taking this. It's mine. And consequently, he gathered it to himself. Now, friends, a half-truth is a lie. It is. A half-truth is a lie. You are actually deceiving. In fact, it's a waste lie because it is engineered to deceive. It's engineered to deceive. So it's a conspiring, that's what is happening there, conspiring for evil. You want this person to go away thinking something, when in actual fact it's the exact opposite, which is true. It's a form of fraud. That's what it is. A form of fraud. That was what is happening here. When Saul said, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Yes, he had performed, but that's a lie. He had not performed because he had not done that which he was fully supposed to do. That's why in court they are very clever. They say this, that you must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They know that a human being standing in front of them can tell the truth and lie at the same time by telling a half-truth. They know, and therefore they say, tell the truth, the whole truth, and the truth without mixture of lies. And if you were to bring that test to this statement of Saul, he has failed the test, completely failed the test. Why? He told the truth, half the truth, and that's a lie. That is a total lie. And friends, this shows a lack of repentance. It shows that somebody does not accept the fact that what I have done is sinful. It's wicked. It's evil. It's something that ought to break my heart. and caused me to fall before God, pleading with Him to have genuine mercy upon me. Not only to forgive my sin, but to transform my heart that I might consequently be a person who genuinely lives for godliness. For godliness. Let me ask again, does this describe you? Does it? Are you living a lie? A lie. In other words, because other Christians and believers around you and your church leaders don't know the other half of your life, you are willing to live a lie. A lie. To give one side of a life, one side of an impression, when underneath there, it is rotting. There are worms that are there, eating away your life. What you are doing is presenting to fellow believers, Christians and church leaders the half that you want them to know. The half. But there is another half. A half which is evil and wicked. A half which is disobedience to God but beneficial to you. The other half. What it obviously means is that you are living a lie. You are living a lie. Now, friends, this is a very simple and practical principle. Let me quickly apply it in this way. First of all, as Christians, we are not always together. We are not. Like Samuel and Saul, there are those periods when you are apart. Saul had gone to do what was supposed to be the Lord's business, but in the end, he now turned it around for his own benefit. Well, Samuel wasn't there. It's like that with us as believers. And then comes that day, which is the Lord's day, when we meet together like this. And we are all in our Sunday best. And we are all looking like, you know where we've come from? We've come from living for Jesus. And we speak the right language here around the church premises. The right language, the religious language. Everything is supposed to be speak span correct. And after that, we even get into our cars and minibuses and Yangos and Olendos and so on and off we go. But are you sure that those friends of yours know the real you as you go out of this gate? The real you. so that if they are to go into their closets to pray for you, they will be praying for the real you. Are you sure? Or have you given them the religious jargon, the high sounding phrases, the half stories, that you know would be acceptable to them. But there is the other half that they really should know so that they can pray for you correctly. But you have completely hidden it away. You've shrouded it away and put on it a clock that you think should be acceptable to them. And off you go. I want to say, that's living a lie, and that shows a lack of true repentance. A lack of true repentance. Let me go further. Thankfully, although we are not together all the time as believers, most of us are together with other believers across the week. We are together with workmates. We are together with family members. And they know what someone here knew. They know that while we are pretending, while we are putting up a face in the car park here, chatting away as though all is well, they know because they live with us in the same home, they work with us in the same offices, they are studying with us in the same lecture rooms and classrooms. They know that we are living a life which is a lie. And here's the point, brethren. Those of us who know, we must not conspire in this kind of evil, because in the end, we destroy one another's lives. We do. And sadly, what often happens is, yes, you're in the car park, and you're chatting, and the one who knows is sort of looking at you thinking, hmm. But they remain quiet. And then, when you've left this place, that's when they start whispering. Although he was speaking like this, actually, it is this. You're not helping one another. You're not. As we shall go on to see, Saul was quick to say, if you've done what you're claiming to have done, how come I'm hearing some animals making noise. How come? But that's for next week. For now, all I want to say is this, that we must not conspire in evil and wickedness. We shouldn't. If you know that your friend is living a lie, is living on half-truths, Well, first of all, confront him, confront her. Say, this is sin. You know. Number two, you know you were cheating by half-truths. You know. So I'm giving you the opportunity. You go and give the correct picture. If you don't, I will give the correct picture. Otherwise, if that person ever finds out that as I was sitting there or standing there listening, I knew what I knew, even my testimony sinks into the mess pool. And I don't want to be part of this. I don't want. So you go back. in the midst of all those high-flounding phrases, give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If you don't, I must correct the situation. I want to repeat, we must never allow false repentance to continue. Because at the end of the day, it is destructive. It's a cancer that eats people from the inside. It's termites that are eating away at this world. And one day, the whole thing will collapse. And then guess what? They will find out you knew all along. You knew it! You sink with it. So then, I want to quickly conclude. We've begun to contrast Samuel's response to sin to that which is souls. In someone's case, there was genuine anger, genuine grief, and genuine, let's deal with it. That's godliness. With Saul, the first, as we've already seen, is lying, hypocrisy, half-truths. Lying lips. And as I said at the very beginning, take it as a maxim. Lying lips betray false repentance. If you are surviving on half-truths, you are actually living a lie. It shows that you are not genuinely repentant. You are not. And friends, it is such a heart that ends up living in sin underneath there. a heart that is actually full of hatred for other people, full of actual sexual immorality because it's all hidden down there, full of defrauding other people, literally a life of lies. And you justify yourself by that 10% or 20% that is true and that's what you are living out. Somehow you justify yourself. But let me put it this way. You can cheat fellow human beings. You can't cheat God. He sees everything. And guess What is written on top of your life up there, it is the words from God, I regret. I regret. Why? Because he is seeing the detail that other people don't see. I regret. Imagine such words written over your life. I regret. Thankfully, in Christ, there's a second chance. But it's for those who genuinely repent. For those who say, no more lying. No more lying. Those who come out openly with all the filth of their lives, Jesus is willing to save, Jesus is willing to cleanse, Jesus is willing to forgive. With that real attitude, you can come to Christ. for that cleansing fountain or cleansing flood. And I want to assure you, he will wash away your sin. But you need to come listen truthfully, speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Amen. Thank you for that word from God. We need to...