Proverbs 14.5 says, a faithful witness will not lie, but a false witness will utter lies. This proverb appears to be a simple enough statement. Someone who lies is not a faithful witness, but a false witness, because that's what a false witness does. But I believe it is clear to the honest observer that we live in a time where this proverb is being violated at nearly every turn. How so? Well, let's begin with the obvious. How many politicians can you look at with any amount of hindsight and say that they were a faithful witness? They promised to do this, and to stand for that, and to work for this other thing, and the next thing you know, they lied. I'm not going to give specific examples because I don't want our thoughts to be derailed by partisan politics, but if I were to give examples and name names, many people would immediately begin excusing and explaining away the dishonesty of that politician if he were identified with the party or movement of the people providing excuses. You see how this works? Today there are a lot of people who excuse the false witnesses for various reasons. And then there is what we call the news media. Nearly every news anchor you see on local and national news is nothing but a script reader. They have no idea if what they're reading is true or not. And they read lies and distortions of the news on a regular basis. And that can be proven. The script being read by the talking head on your local news show many times is sent out to thousands of local station affiliates from the headquarters so that while you're watching a local newscast, that same script is being read on thousands of local stations verbatim. And the writer back at headquarters injects partisan politics and biased spin into those stories instead of simply reporting the news as advertised. When you call what you're doing news, but you inject and infect your reports with opinion and your personal agendas, you are not a faithful witness, but a false witness. Our news media, with few exceptions, is a lie because it isn't news. It's propaganda. A faithful witness will not lie. But a false witness will underlies. And I could go on and on with examples out there in the world, but I also observed the same sort of thing among individuals, including professing Christians, that have no direct connection with local or national politics or political parties or news organizations. For years now, I've seen people, some I've known personally, while others are simply known by online connections, they'll send out emails or make social media posts that are nothing but lies or maybe just some truth injected with lies. The cause they support is usually something I support with them, like opposition to abortion or opposition to gun control, but the content of that post is misrepresenting the data or twisting someone else's words. Most of us have been guilty of carelessly sharing something that turned out not to be true. When I first got on social media, there was a video posted by a satire site called The Onion. They put out a video that showed a congressman giving a speech about aliens and UFOs and preparations being made for an invasion. And I found it believable, not only because it was professionally produced and slick, but there is a factual basis for believing such a thing is being prepped. Not a real alien invasion, but we can get into that some other time. Well, I posted it with a comment about how the speech that that congressman was supposedly given was shocking, but not totally surprising. And then a friend posted a comment with the link to the original Onion story and I realized I'd been duped. So I took it down and reposted with a confession of my gullibility and had a good laugh over it. I learned that I had to check my sources and do a little research before sharing things like that. I don't want to be a false witness. But the sad thing is that over the years I've informed others that their posts, emails, or just things said in conversation simply weren't accurate. I provide the information needed in order for them to see the facts, and many times they'll double down and get angry. And because we don't have the interest or the time to get into politics, I simply wanted to encourage our friends listening to these devotionals to heed this proverb. Don't be careless and don't defend lies. Be humble if you find out you've spread something false and set your intentions toward being a faithful witness and not a false witness that utters lies.