Well, this morning I'm not teaching from any one particular text. I'm going to be speaking from a number of texts, so I'm going to have you turn to your Bible to begin with. The title of my sermon this morning is Righteous Deception, and it's kind of following on from last week. Last week we looked at Jacob's deception of his father Isaac, and we saw that despite the fact that commentators call Jacob all kinds of names, Scripture does not do this, but rather presents a very different evaluation of Jacob's character. And we looked into that, and I suggest if you weren't here that it might be helpful for you to follow up that sermon audio and listen to the story of Jacob. People struggle with Jacob, with what he did. And I believe the reason they struggle with him is because they've not come to grips with many other passages in the Bible where similar actions are depicted in a positive light. Thus it's vital if we're going to glorify God in every circumstance that we find ourselves in, every situation that comes across our path, it's vital that we need to understand God's revelation showing us how to be ready for every good work. Scripture clearly says that it is given to us so that we might be thoroughly equipped and ready for every good work. And thus we need to evaluate different passages so that we might be ready for every good work. What is your responsibility before God if you are hiding Jews and the Nazis knock at your door and say, do you have any of these vagabonds in your house? Or can you deceive your enemy on the battlefield? Is that a moral thing to do? Can you lie to a border guard when you're smuggling Bibles into a closed country that does not want Bibles into that country? Would that be immoral? These are questions that are relevant, and I believe scripture has given us much counsel on these issues, and we need to have wisdom in understanding these issues, understanding what God has revealed, and not fight against what God's text clearly shows. It's vital that we do justice to the whole of God's revelation and not try to reduce things to the simplistic notion that one size fits all when we come to giving answers for the many different situations in life. For many, Rahab is a disturbing character in scripture. For one, she was a prostitute who ended up in the lineage of Jesus Christ, as Matthew 1 and verse 5 show. And secondly, She lied to the king of Jericho's men about the whereabouts of the spies that Joshua had sent into Jericho to spy out the land. She lied to these men. In Joshua 2, verses 1-6, she lied to the messengers that came and said, OK, where are these men? But Rahab is twice singled out in the New Testament as an example of true faith for the way she protected the spies. We read that in Hebrews 11, verse 31, and James, Chapter 2 verses 14 and following. She's singled out as an example of faith. Now commentators are quick to point out that the Bible is in no way including her lie in the commendation that it gives her. And so they'll say, no, the lie must be separated out from where the scriptures talk positively about this woman. These commentators balk at her lie. They don't worry about her treason. That doesn't bother them. Her treason against her government and her people. It's the lie that is scandalous in their eyes. Treason is fine, but a lie is a gross failure of moral character. But let's focus on the lie for a little bit. Those who find fault with the lie are actually turning the book of James on its head. Because they are somehow trying to defend Rahab's faith without her actions, without her works that James lists. Now James's point in writing this book is defining her faith by her works. That's what he's doing. He's listing her in this whole section in James where he's proving faith by works. Not saved by your works by the way, but showing that true faith is manifested by good works. That's what he's doing in this passage. He's pointing to the works of the people he lists as evidence of their true faith. Some try to tell us that Rahab's faith, wherein she believed in the true God, is what is being praised. However, the details that make up the incident with the spies are to be filtered so that the bad things are not included in James's praise. So we need to filter through these things and say, OK, well, we pick this and we put a cross over that one because that was a bad thing. It seems strange, however, that James would choose Rahab Out of all the host of other possible people he could have chosen as examples of true faith, showing how faith and works are together in the manifestation of our Christian life, he chooses her to show that good works are inseparable from true faith. That's what James is doing, remember, in his book. Why would he choose Rahab, if that was his objective, if her works were a confused mixture of good and bad? Why would you choose Rahab? Why would you choose somebody when their life is this turmoil of confusion? And you say, okay, this is an example of true faith. And he chooses that incident, by the way. How can unrighteous works demonstrate true saving faith? James chose the whole incident as a demonstration of true faith. He didn't divide it up. He didn't... indicate in any way that we need to get rid of some details. Rather, James focuses in on what specifically he had in mind. Namely, he praises Rahab for preserving the lives of the spies by getting the soldiers off their tracks. This was true faith. She distracted the soldiers away from the spies. Her actions were a manifestation of faith to the true God. She didn't count her life as valuable. but instead sought to advance God's cause. Greater love hath no man than a man lay down his life for his friends. That's true faith. James could have said, Ray had believed God and hung a red cord out of her window when they attacked the city. He could have used that as the example. Because that too was an example of true faith. That's what she did. It was manifesting her faith in God, demonstrating that she trusted that God was going to deliver her from the city as the whole city was going to be annihilated. That was the only thing that saved her and her family, was dangling that red cord from her window as the city was attacked. James didn't choose that point. Rather, James chooses to highlight the work that included her lie, her deception and her treason. Moreover, when James instructed his troops before the battle, he told them to spare Rahab's life. And the reason he gave for sparing her life was, as Joshua 6, verses 17 and verse 25 say, they say twice, the reason they were to spare her life is because she hid the spies. She hid the spies. Those people who struggle with Rahab's lie, to the messengers who said, where are the spies? And she said, they're not here, they're gone. But they were hiding on her roof, where she had hidden them. Those who say that this is wrong, how do you escape the hiding from the spies from the lying to the messengers? So hiding the spies was good according to this reasoning, but lying to the pursuers was wrong. But how do you separate these two from each other? How do you separate the hiding from the deception? She put them under the flag. She lied to the soldiers. She sent them in the opposite direction. And then she let the spies out of the city illegally. It was illegal to let somebody down in a basket, particularly when the city was on red alert. The whole city was shut down. Nobody was coming in. Nobody was going out. That's how it was. It was shut down. And she lowered them over the wall in a basket. If you want to be a purist, no untruth will ever pass my lips, and that's the standard. Then everything she did was scandalous. The city of Jericho was in a state of high preparation for war. It was in red alert, and yet Rahab received the spies with peace, according to Hebrews 11.31. She then risked her life for the purpose of the true God. She betrayed her whole nation, and they were all going to be annihilated. And yet God highly exalted her for defending and protecting the men who would bring about the utter destruction of every person in her city except herself and her family. Believers agree that Rahab had a moral obligation to hide the spies. They'll all agree to that. I've never heard a believer who has not agreed to that. However, many insist that she shouldn't have lied about their whereabouts. If you ask such people what she should have done, what she should have said to the king's messengers, they'll say, if she was unable to tell the truth without giving them away, then she should have said nothing. Rahab, do you have the spies? But such is a naive and artificial understanding of Life as it really is in God's kingdom. And the so-called solution is not from scripture. You got a Nazi banging on your door. He says, are you hiding any Jews? Or maybe you're hiding Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. And a Hutu is banging on your door saying, have you got any Tutsis in here? What do you say? If you remain silent, you might as well just take them and show them where you're hiding these people. I cannot answer your question, officer. Because then they're going to ransack your house, punching holes in the walls, digging up the floorboards. We ought to trust God. who work in such situations. But inseparable from trusting Him is embracing His revelation, which He has given to us, so that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work. If God reveals how we ought to act in such a situation, and we refuse because we are holier than that, then we are no different to Ahaz, King Ahaz, who rebelled against God's clear command, telling him what he ought to do. God said to him, ask a sign of me, in Isaiah 7, verses 11 and 12. He said, ask a sign of me, and Ahaz said, hey, I'm holier than that. I'm not going to ask a sign. That would be so wrong, to ask a sign of your hand. God said, oh, you're a really good guy, aren't you? Now, God was extremely angry with Ahaz. Likewise, to say that if you can't tell the truth in one of these situations, then you should say nothing, it's not biblical. There are definitely situations in life when a no comment answer undermines your God revealed responsibility before God. Samuel was caught in that scenario. So I'm not making that up. Samuel found himself in that exact situation when God told him to anoint David as king while Saul was still alive. He said, David, go up to Bethlehem, anoint David. Samuel said to the Lord, what? Are you out of your mind? Saul hears about this, he's going to kill me. You know, he's on the rampage, he's so paranoid, he's terrified of this new king, he's trying to stop a new king from coming to the throne. He's going to kill me if I go up to Bethlehem. The Lord says no, in 1 Samuel 16 verse 2. When they ask you why you're coming to Bethlehem, say, take a sacrifice with you. Say, no, I'm coming to you just to sacrifice to the Lord. So when Samuel came to the city and the elders inquired about the purpose of his visit, that's what he told them. You see, the elders were Saul's eyes and ears. Samuel, what are you doing here? This is not just a nobody visiting your city. This is Samuel the prophet. And Saul knew he was anointed by Samuel. He knew Samuel comes and checks out the new king and anoints him. He knew the procedure. And here Samuel is coming to Bethlehem. And Saul's eyes and ears are saying, what is going on? And Samuel says, hey, I'm just coming to sacrifice to the Lord. And they said, oh, great, you're welcome. That's fine. That's allowed in this context. Did Samuel tell the truth? Certainly not. But you'll find commentators who say he did. John Murray, for example, is one in his book Principles of Conduct. He argues that there was no untruth in Samuel's words. For although he concealed some information from Saul, this is what Murray says, he was not lying, he told the truth. Well, he was coming to make a sacrifice. How is it possible to call what Samuel did truthful? You have to redefine truth, to redefine your concept of what it means in order to do that. What was the fundamental thing that Saul wanted to know? Are you coming to anoint another king? That's what he wanted to know. That's what he was concerned about. Samuel's answer to the elders, which indirectly was an answer to Saul himself, was that Saul had nothing to worry about because he was not coming to do that which Saul was most worried about. I'm not coming to anoint a king, don't worry about that, I'm coming to sacrifice. The impression Samuel gave was that there was only one reason for his visit, to sacrifice to the Lord. To argue, as John Murray does, that Samuel's words were strictly in accord with the facts, which is what Murray says, is to undermine the very idea of truth and end up in the Pharisees' camp, where if someone doesn't phrase their question perfectly, you can answer them incorrectly, or you can give them a false answer. That's what the Pharisees did, remember? They said, if you give your word and you swear by the temple, you don't have to keep it. You can say to somebody, I swear by the temple that I'm going to do this. And the Pharisees said, no, you got it wrong. You see, unless you swear by the gold in the temple, then just the temple has no value, it has no authority, therefore you don't have to keep your word. It's Matthew 23, verses 16 through 22. It's not binding. Isn't that how a crooked second-hand car salesman operates? He knows what you're asking when you say to him, is the engine good? And he says, oh man, it purrs like a kitten. He knows what you're asking, and he knows he's done something temporarily that's going to make the engine sound good, but it's not going to last. He knows that. He knows the tricks of the trade. He knows what your question is, and he's answered you. So, according to John Murray's idea with Samuel, did the second-hand car salesman speak an untruth? No, he didn't. He told you the full truth. He held back some information, but what he said was truthful. Primary concern and question was, is this engine going to last me longer than 24 hours? He knows it's not going to last very long. He knows that's what you want to know. And his words are misleading you. He's deceiving you and he knows it. It was Corrie ten Boom's family that struggled with how to answer the Nazis' question. Because they didn't want to lie. Now they were hiding Jews during the Second World War. And they're very courageous and exemplary in many ways. But they struggled with this issue. They didn't have a biblical understanding of, well, how do I reconcile this with my ethic? And they had them in this secret room underneath the kitchen floor. And they had the kitchen table. And one time they were sitting around the table working, and the Germans came in and said, do you know of any whereabouts of any Jews? And they said, they're under the table. Can't you see them? Ha ha. And the Germans said, you're making fun of us, and they turned around and left. But the ten Burns felt very satisfied in their hearts we hadn't told a lie. See, we told them the truth, they wanted to say what they were. So how do you reconcile that? Scripture shows us. The prophet Samuel lied to the elders of Bethlehem, but he did this in accordance with God's specific instruction to do so. Likewise, we see the prophet Elisha doing the same thing when the Syrians were warring against Israel. You see, Elijah kept informing the king of Israel the plans of the Syrians. The Syrians would come up with these secret plans, and as they were going to carry out this attack against Israel, Elijah would send message to the king of Israel and they would thwart the plans. Eventually, the Syrian king said, what is going on? Who's a spy in my camp? And they said, no, no, no, it's none of us. See, Elijah, he knows what we talk about in secret. So the king of Syria said, okay guys, send my army, we're going to catch that man. We've got to silence him before we can have any success against Israel. 2nd Kings chapter 6, you read about the account. And the Syrian army finds Elijah. 2nd Kings 6 and verse 18. They find him by the city. And the city is surrounded and Elijah prays, Lord, blind the eyes of these people. The Lord blinds their eyes. And then he goes up to them and he says, Hey, you know, I'm not the guy you're looking for, but you know, I'm going to take you. This is the wrong city as well. I'm going to take you to the city that you need to go to. And they say, Oh, thanks very much. And so they follow Elijah. Elijah to Samaria. The fact is the Syrians had found the right man, they had found the right city, but Elijah's words led them to believe otherwise. John Murray, again in his attempt to defend his own false premise that a lie is never justified, has to explain what's going on in this passage, but in trying to escape the charge that Elijah used deception or light, he ends up in all kinds of confusion and a mess. Even though the Prophet knew exactly who the Syrians were looking for, Murray argues that by using clever linguistic maneuvers, what the Prophet said was technically true despite the fact that his intention was to deceive the Syrians. It becomes a game, it becomes a word game, in order to defend Elijah. Murray's position leaves us in confusion, because by him denying that there is a legitimate use of deception and insisting that we must only ever tell the truth no matter what, he ends up destroying the biblical definition of truth when he's confronted with these kinds of situations and examples in scripture. It is clearly not telling the truth when you intentionally get someone to arrive at a wrong conclusion by clever words that you string together, by your linguistic maneuvers. That's not telling the truth. Murray then has to make farcical statements like, and I quote, it is difficult to find untruth in what Elisha said. Murray says, it is difficult to find untruth. But truth is truth and deception is deception and we must not blur the two. I contend that we need to bow to God's revelation about doctrine and ethics and when we do this we see that there are times when it is right to use deception to deceive God's enemies. It is not glorifying to the Lord when we try to defend God's name with our own misguided ethical standard and thereby change the plain meaning of scripture by saying or implying that deception is actually telling the truth. God's not ashamed to use deception, and He's revealed that very clearly, and nor must we be, though we have to use it very carefully. Dr. Murray continues to flounder due to his false idea when he looks at the way Joshua defeated Ai in Joshua 8, where the battle against Ai was after Jericho, the great victory against Jericho, There was sin in the camp and the children of Israel went up to battle Ai, a very small little city, and his army was routed. Some soldiers were killed and they fled back. Then Joshua went to the Lord and the Lord told him the plan. And so Joshua sets out with his plan and he sets up He sends one force to go and hide, lie in wait on the side of the city and he takes up another force and goes before the city with his soldiers and he presents himself to them and the city's soldiers come out and they start battling and Joshua turns and starts to flee with his soldiers and they're all fleeing from the defenders of Ea. And so as they're fleeing away and they get to a certain point, at God's instruction, Joshua raises his arm And the army that's in hiding swivels around because every man had left the city and entered the city of Ai and destroys it and sets it on fire. And the people who are pursuing Joshua see their city burning and they've got no more energy and they stop and Joshua turns around and then they get crushed in the midst and we're all killed. The reason Joshua and his men fled from the soldiers of Ai was to draw them away from the city so that Joshua's other soldiers could take the city. Now John Murray argues that there was no deception or untruth in Joshua's actions. It was Ai's own fault for chasing Joshua and interpreting Israel's actions contrary to fact. Murray says that since Joshua intended to retreat and then retreated, he acted in truth. He was true to his intentions. This is a brilliant man and his book Principles of Conduct is an excellent book for the most part. Because of his presumption that you can never utter an untruth, he gets into these passages and he struggles. He bounces all over the place and comes up with those kinds of statements. But did Joshua intend to retreat? He did. But his intention in doing that was to deceive the children of Ai, the soldiers of Ai, that in fact he was being chased. They were once again fleeing for their lives. They were a defeated army. That was his intention. That's what he wanted them to think, so that they would chase after them. So Murray, in trying to avoid the obvious fact that deception is legitimate in certain circumstances, leads one to think that you can... Apparently, if he's justifying this, Joshua didn't deceive. That's Murray's position. So is body language allowed? That's my implication from what Murray is saying. Is body language allowed to deceive someone, but words aren't? Do we have this kind of conflict? You see, because Joshua's body language was, we are full of fear and running for our lives. But how different is this deceptive body language from Rahab's words to the messengers of the king of Jericho when they came to her house and said, no, the guys aren't here. How different is that? It's no difference. But Murray attempts to uphold the necessity of always telling the truth and he actually ends up undermining the definition of truth. You see, if you're going to be consistent with this idea that Murray is proclaiming here, that we should never under any circumstances communicate an untruth, then you would have to condemn camouflage in warfare. How can you camouflage yourself? Because you're wanting the enemy to think you're a bush. That's what you're doing. I want him to think I'm a tree. And Joshua's spies, when they went into Jericho, they would have dressed as the locals. They wouldn't have worn on their back, you know, Jews are the best, or Israel is the greatest nation. They wouldn't have dressed like that. They would have found out, what are the locals wearing? We're going to put that on because we want to blend in. We want to look like the locals. So we should condemn those spies along with Rahab, by the way. We should. Because they were also deceiving the people of... Sorry, this was body language. They didn't say anything. They didn't say anything. If your body language is allowed to mislead people, like fleeing in battle, that's body language. Dressing like locals, or looking like vegetation. If you sit very still, you can convince people you're a tree or a bush. If body language is allowed, then can I shake my head from side to side when I mean yes? I know it's communicating to you, it's communicating no, but I really mean yes, and it's your fault for not understanding. It's fine to make yourself look like a tree, but it's wrong to say you're a tree. Because then you succumb to letting an untruth pass your lips. You see, when David pretended to be a madman, to escape from Achish, king of Gath, in 1 Samuel 21, verses 12-15, he's fussing at the mouth, he's making himself look absolutely crazy. So eventually the king says, hey, get this madman out of my presence, that can't be David. But Psalm 34 praises God for his deliverance in this situation. It talks about David being delivered from Abimelech, and Abimelech, they say, is kind of the name for king as opposed to the specific name. Akish was the actual king. Abimelech is the term, like Pharaoh or whatever, the kingly name. We have to do justice to all the examples that God gives us in Scripture. It's like, you know, how do I reconcile this with my ethic that I've come up with in my mind? You see, to reject God's revealed will, and thus His wisdom with respect to the legitimate use of deception, it leaves us in quite a mess. Must you tell a robber whether he's found all your money? Is this all you've got on you? No, actually I've got a little bit more in this left shoe and a little bit more here that I stuffed down my back. Okay, maybe that's a simple one. Are you allowed to leave a light on in your house when you're not there? Because the impression is to make somebody think you are there and you could be deceiving a would-be burglar. That guy deceived me, I thought he was at home. These are important questions that need biblical answers, lest we become wishy-washy or pharisaic in our understanding. There are many other examples. But the ones I've highlighted are not merely accounts of something happening in the Bible. The ones I've accounted have God's stamp upon them. There's some comment from God himself revealing what his intentions are. I could have listed a whole pile of other things with David and Jonathan and things they did when Saul wanted to kill David and Jonathan hit him. But we don't have a comment in the scriptures on those passages. I think they fall in line with all of these, but I've just chosen, and I'll give you a few more, where God himself comments on the action, and you say, OK, now how do I understand this? Why is God looking positively and giving his approval to these actions? Like the Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1, where we're told that Pharaoh told them, because he was afraid of the multiplication of the Jews, he said, I want you to kill all the Jewish boys. Girls can live, but boys, you kill them as they're being born, you know, just give them a little 21st century manipulation that we do in our nation. That the midwives were righteous women and feared God. And they refused to do this. But when Pharaoh challenged them on this, they lied to him about what was happening. They said, oh no, these boys are born so quickly. The Israeli women are so strong that the babies are out before we even get there. And God's evaluation is what? Verse 20 and 21. Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided houses for them. And once again, what does this commentator say? Well, we divide up the action. It wasn't everything God was agreeing with or praising these midwives. It was only certain aspects. Their faith in Him. So they can divide up the action so they can denounce the lie while explaining the reason for God blessing them. If we can separate out the lie from the rest, then they can feel comfortable with why God blessed these ladies. However, this ignores the clear testimony of Scripture that shows how inseparable the lie was to God's purpose of greatly multiplying His people. As verse 20 says of Exodus 1, Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. It's inseparable. Scripture doesn't allow us to adopt the simplistic policy of just tell the truth and trust God to work things out in such circumstances. The midwives were effective servants in the kingdom because they didn't have a deformed worldview about deceiving God's enemies. When they're getting you to sin, when they're getting you to do something that's in complete violation of God's truth, how do I respond? How do I respond? What about jail? The brave and upright woman. How did she deal with the Lord's enemy, Sisera, in Judges chapter 4? When Sisera's army was routed before Israel, he ran. He said, there's one place I can find a safe hiding place. I can find a place there. And so he ran to Jael's tent to be safe. Judges chapter 4 and verse 17. And Jael met him and said, turn aside, my Lord. Turn aside to me. Do not fear. And when he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket. She gave him some warm milk and said, hey, drink some milk and lay down and rest. And then she put a tent peg through his head. Now if we ended there, you could come up with your negative evaluation and say, oh, such darkness that comes descended upon Israel. Look at this woman. But unfortunately for those people who would like to say that, the prophet Deborah in Judges chapter 5 highly praises jail, verses 24 through 27. And Jael, inspired by the Holy Spirit, because of Jael's actions, calls her the most blessed among women. There are other similar incidents in Judges where God delivers his people, or his deliverers that he's using to deliver his people, use deception on his enemies. But this one has a clear reference with God evaluates it, and he says, there, this is my evaluation on what took place. When two ladies came to Solomon, both claiming that one child was theirs, what did he do? 1 Kings 3, verses 24 and 25. His actions and his words convinced both these ladies, and I believe everybody else in his presence, that this baby was about to be cut in half. Now we know the story and the outcome. And then everyone marveled at Solomon's wisdom. But scripture says in verse 28 of 1 Kings 3, that this was the wisdom of God. the wisdom of God. So we are to separate Solomon's deception out from amongst what was God's wisdom and what was his? How do we do that? We can play all kinds of games with the text. Should we separate it up? What Solomon did, like we separate Rahab's situation, like we separate the midwife's situation, we've got to cut these up and parse them into little parts, and then we pick the good parts and say, this is what God was praising, the rest we can leave alone. How do we do that? In Solomon's it's impossible, because this was the wisdom of God. What was the wisdom of God? Cutting this baby in half. Suggesting that and saying that, and convincing your audience that you were about to do it. You see, deception It's clearly one of the means God uses to fulfill his purposes in this world. He makes false prophets speak nonsense, which his enemies believe unto their own destruction. So God sent a false spirit to deceive King Ahab in 1 Kings 22. The Lord also says in Ezekiel chapter 14 and verse 9, and if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I'll stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among the people. And in 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 11, God also sends strong delusion to his enemies so that they should believe a lie. See, there are many more accounts of righteous deception in Scripture. The ones I've highlighted are ones that have God's clear comment upon them where we see nothing negative said. It's necessary to sketch some parameters for the right use of deception because it's possible to abuse the application of this. Firstly, the Christian must reject the idea of situational ethics. What's going on here with these examples is not situational ethics. The believer will never be put in a situation where God expects him to violate one aspect of God's law in order to obey another aspect of God's law. He'll never do that. Nor are we to think that because history brings about changes, that God's law also changes. So, well, that was just Old Testament. That's how they did it in the Old Testament. Moreover, the idea that we can find ourselves in a situation where we are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils is not biblical. I've got to choose here the lesser of the two evils. Which one is that? God never puts us in a position where we have to choose the lesser of two evils. Because James 1.13 says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. He never puts us in a situation where we have to choose something that is evil. If we ever find ourselves in a situation where there is no possibility of making a righteous choice, then God would have tempted us with sin. I have no righteous option before me. Because every violation of God's law, or lack of conformity to it, is sin. Some tell us that life can present us with tragic moral choices. We have to decide between one of the two evils. But Jesus didn't face such choices in his life, and neither do we. Scripture tells us, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. So if there's no clear right or wrong in every situation, then there can be no sin in that situation. It's never beneficial to break God's law, because no temptation has overtaken us such as is common to man, and with the temptation God will provide a way of escape, so that we may be able to bear it. So this does not mean that making moral choices will always be easy. They won't. There are times when it's extremely difficult to know what the righteous choice is, but we must remember that there is always a righteous option. If we cannot see a righteous option in some situations, it's because we've misunderstood the situation or we've misunderstood God's revelation. We've got a problem in our thinking. We cannot get away from the fact that there are priorities within God's law and this is an important aspect to understanding what God's law is teaching and how to apply it. We don't only have to know the commandments, both the positive and the negative aspects, but we also need to allow the Bible to be its own exegete, to exegete itself, and show us how to apply each commandment in life's varied circumstances. For example, some people, if they're trying to argue against the death sentence, where do they go to? They go to the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill. That settles the debate. No more death sentence. But we know we cannot do that. You cannot overthrow capital punishment with the sixth commandment, because scripture shows us that there are exceptions to the command, thou shalt not kill. We do not violate that command when we execute the murderer, because the Bible itself gives us exceptions or true boundaries for this commandment. It also shows that just warfare is legitimate, so we can go to war in a just way and kill people in a war. It shows us that self-defense, legitimate self-defense, can use lethal force. And we could kill somebody with lethal force and we would not be violating the sixth commandment in certain situations of self-defense. You see, it's God's Word that is to determine what the righteous option is in difficult circumstances. We need to know that Word. We need to be able to apply it to our many different circumstances. And what we've been looking at today are clear biblical exceptions to the ninth commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness. And it's wise to let God's word show us where these boundaries are, lest we sin against Him by thinking we are wiser or holier than Him. If we do not allow God's revelation to draw the boundaries, then we will be walking in violation of His truth. Careful work needs to be done, that's true, to understand the exceptions. But we are accountable to do this work. I believe there is a mountain of evidence in scripture on the subject that teaches that God has ordained the legitimate use of deception in order to preserve innocent life. in order to attain justice, which is in Solomon's case, and to advance his purposes in certain situations. There's a time to use that. If we're going to live by every word from God's mouth, and if we're not going to put God to the test by demanding that he intervene, Lord, I'm not going to lie to these Nazis, you have to intervene, so I'm not going to say anything and you've got to take it from there. That's what Rahab should have done, we're told. She should have just said nothing and left it in God's hands. That's what Jacob should have done, we're told. He should have just said, left it in God's hands, as opposed to intervening in the way that they did. If we're not going to demand that God intervenes in this way, where He has shown that in many times He is not going to intervene because we have been instructed what we need to do, the only way we can arrive at the right conclusion is to bow what God has revealed about the legitimate use of deception. It's only by being utterly dependent upon God's Word that we'll be able to live for God's glory in this fallen world, a world that is hostile to His purposes. We are definitely not expected to give God-hating, God-rejecting pagans information by which they can war against His kingdom and His purposes, and where they are seeking to overthrow God and His truth. We have a responsibility to fight against them, and at times deception is required. To choose the way of silence when the Bible would teach us to lie is to be complicit in the killing of innocent life. If we refuse to lie, Believing there's a better way to protect innocent life, then we'll be rejecting God's wisdom. So we can abuse this. It is possible to abuse this. I've met people, believers, who do abuse this truth. And we need to stand firmly against the abuse of it. But at the same time, because it can be abused, we are not to flee from it. We do not have the authority to make any exceptions to God's law that pleases us. And God is not arbitrary in what He reveals on the subject, so we must protect innocent life. And while we can lie to protect somebody else's life, God also says that we should not lie in order to protect our own in the sense of denying Him. So we cannot deny Him. That would be a violation of this truth. Peter sinned when he denied the Lord in order to save his own life. Daniel and his three friends glorified God by rather dying than denying the Lord. And that is the biblical pattern with respect. You don't protect your life and deny the Lord and thus lie in this way. If we are weak in faith and do deny the Lord, then we have sinned and must repent. And God calls on us to confess our sin, to turn from it. And therefore, once again, you do not lie to cover up your sin. There's no justification in the scriptures for that. That is always condemned by God and shown to be deceptive and wicked. There are consequences for sin and we have no authority to lie about our sin in order to reduce the consequences. So children, remember that. There are consequences for sin. So do not quickly jump to the lie in order to lessen the possible consequences. And that's little children and big children. Because all through our lives we are still tempted with the same thing of lessening the consequences. It's true that this teaching can be abused, like I said. However, if we only teach what cannot be abused and misunderstood, we're not going to teach much in the Bible. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is a doctrine that can be abused greatly. But we do not stop preaching it. We are to teach the whole counsel of God so that God's people might be thoroughly equipped for every good work. God wants us to glory in the truth and be people of the truth. We need to labor so that people trust our words. They trust us and our words have significance and relevance and the way they become trustworthy of our words is by our lives where we manifest that we live according to this truth. We live according to God's word and God's revelation and they can depend upon our words because there, whatever is in here, that is what we are proclaiming, that is what we live by, that is what we uphold. So they trust in our words. So we've got to build on that. We mustn't become loose with our belief of how important truth is. We want people to grow in their confidence and trust in our word that it is true indeed. But God has called us into his kingdom and revealed how he expects us to live in his kingdom. And to ignore anything that God has clearly revealed. To be a legitimate and necessary aspect of living in this world is not only foolish, it is rebellion. We are not yet living in paradise, but in a world still impacted by the ravages of sin, and the whole of God's law is given so that we might be equipped for effective service in this environment. Understanding the righteous use of deception is a vital component for being faithful servants. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and His righteousness is what He has revealed to us. It's not arrived at by our own feelings, it's not arrived at by our own traditions, or our sense of right and wrong. Scripture shows that there is such a thing as righteous deception. You do not have to agree with my evaluation and interpretation of those passages, but what you do have to do is go to those passages and account for them, and account for God's positive statements on them, and then come up with something that's more convincing than what John Murray was able to do. So the challenge and the burden of proof is upon you if you reject this message, and you're free to do that if you wish. But I challenge you with the Word of God to bow your heart to it, and don't be afraid of what God's Word says, but bow to it and ask Him to open your eyes to what He has said, because there is no other wisdom, there is no other words of eternal life and righteousness. Let us pray. Father, we thank You for the comprehensive revelation you have given to us, and even in those areas where we are uncomfortable about what you have said, where our own minds struggle with certain aspects, our own traditions fight against. We pray, Lord, that you would make us people who quickly bow to your word, not to our reinterpretation of your word, but to that which is clear and inescapable. May we be people who quickly bow our hearts to everything that you have said, and may our lives manifest the true wisdom of God. And may we glorify you in all that we do. We pray, Lord, that we would stand strong and be faithful. And if we are challenged and are called upon to defend and save innocent life, that we would have the courage and the wisdom to do that. That we would have the courage and the wisdom to advance your kingdom, even in difficult circumstances. And that we would always trust in that which you have said, and stand and see the glorious salvation of our God. So toward that end, Lord, I pray you protect us from abusing this doctrine, but at the same time I pray that you would help us to apply it specifically and with great wisdom and care to our own lives and circumstances that you would bring across our paths. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.