Psalms: Songs of Ascent

Psalm hundred and 20? I call on the Lord in my distress. And he answers me. Save me lord from lying lips and deceit from deceitful tongues. What will he do to you?

And what more besides you deceitful tongue? He will punish you with a warriors sharp arrows with burning coals of the broom brush. Woe to me that I dwell in meshach, that I live among the tenths of Quida. Too long have I lived among those who hate peace? I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

Pete. Good evening. My name is Pete Woodcock. I'm 1 of the pastors here of the church, and it's a joy to start this new series. I guess, I'm I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me on this, that that lying comes very very easy to us.

You never have to teach a child to lie. My mom and dad didn't say, Pete, you're such a lovely boy. Come here. Let's sit down. Let's work through how to how to lie.

You don't teach children to lie. You don't. You have to teach them the opposite, the lying, that comes very very very easy to us. And you know how easy it is for an untruth to come across your lips. It's so just easy to reach for a lie or not even reach for it.

It's just sort of almost there. So it's absolutely natural for human beings to lie. It seems to be a natural thing for us. That's 1 side. But there is another side to lying that is very, very unnatural.

Some years ago, I got into a really good conversation with a security guard at an airport, and he had been a security guard at all kinds of airports around the world. Particularly Singapore Airport. And I was talking to him and say, it's an amazing airport, Singapore Airport because you just don't go through any security, says it's hundreds of security. People just watching. And he he told me, he said, you see, the thing about human beings is that lying is very unnatural.

For the human being. There are give away signs. Even expert liars. They just give it away because it's not natural. For humans to lie.

And and so we're just looking around, seeing the unnatural little signs. That go and then we and then we capture people. There are just physical ways that that give away lying. And research as well, has linked telling lies with an increase of risk in cancer, an increased risk of anxiety, and depression and addiction and gambling and obviously poor relationships. You know, maybe there's so much anxiety around it, because we're just lying all the time.

But it doesn't it doesn't fit. So we've got this strange relationship with lying as as human beings. It comes as easy as anything. On 1 level, it's just absolutely natural. We have to stop ourselves from telling untruth.

But at another level, it's very unnatural. And we, you know, we've we it it causes all kinds of problems. So we lie to help ourselves, but actually lying is is doing ourselves harm as the as the research is is seems to be telling us. We hate it when people lied to us and yet we lied to other people so quickly. So we come to this song.

It's a tiny little song and the central theme is lying. And how lying destroys the soul really. What we've got here is the start of a pilgrimage. And I'm using that term in the sense of the start of someone that comes alive to God and says, my life now is a journey serving God. I'm going from here to heaven and I'm going to go on this pilgrimage.

It's not just going to a set place. And it starts with this realization that the world is full of lies and the writer wants out. The writer wants to say, I don't want to be part of this lying world. I want to follow the God of truth. That's what's going on here.

So this is the first of a group of psalms and you'll see it in the headings if you look at look at all the Psalms following Psalm 120 or at least the next 15. You'll see that it's a group of Psalms, it's 15 of them. And they're called psalms of a sense. Do you see that at the top, you'll see it'll say the Psalm number and it'll say a Psalm of a sense. 15 of them.

Psalm 120 to Psalm 134. And when we had our media fast and our bible feast, we read these. And they just really struck us as a team and we thought this is brilliant. We we need to preach these. They're just so vividly and they're so beautiful and they're so short as well.

So our sermons will be a lot shorter if we preach these psalms rather than psalms 119, which is rather long. Now the word a sense simply means here steps going up. And most people think that the Jews sang these while they traveled up to Jerusalem for their 3 big annual feasts. Jerusalem is located 2800 feet above sea level and whatever angle you come from Jerusalem, you have to go up. So you always go up to the city.

So these are a psalms of a sense. They're steps up. That's what a lot of people think they were they were used for. Literally going up to Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is the place where you meet God.

It's a it's a picture of where you meet God. That's where the temple is. So it's going up to the temple. But these songs also have this sort of upward motion in them if if you read them. They're songs of a sense because in themselves, there's stepping out and stepping up and going up.

They usually begin with a cry out to God People are in trouble. Then the help comes, and then they step up to the temple. They end up in the temple. In Jerusalem where they meet with God and they're rejoicing. That's how it goes.

Very beautiful, full of lovely imagery, meaningful expression and all of that sort of stuff. But the sense is a journey, a journey moving from the dark place in the world and going to end up in the temple where God is. It's a sort of spiritual journey. And these were used as like spiritual sound soundtracks. It used to be years ago.

I don't know whether anyone does does this anymore. But when you went on a journey, like, we're going to Prasatin or whatever it is called. It's North Wales. It takes about 80 years to get there. If I was doing that years ago, I would I would make a little sound tape with all my favorite songs, you know, And when you go into Wales, it would have to cheer you up.

It's such a dark place. And, you know, there would be songs that would be, you know, hallelujah songs or something. To try and cheer you up. And that's what these songs are. They're sort of soundtracks to help us walk through life.

And no god in difficult situations. They're pilgrimage soundtracks if you like. To help us follow God in difficult times. That's what they are. Some people think that these 15 songs are in groups of 3.

There's a lot of lot of truth about that. It's quite hard to get everyone in groups of 3, but they largely are, and these first 3 are definitely groups of 3. So it goes something like this, you know, the difficulty that the the person's in, the cry for help, And then finally, you're there in the presence of God. That's that's how it goes. So this little journey psalms.

And here's the first 1 of all of these. And we're in a world of lies. So here's my first point with this song. The situation is distress and warfare. The situation before this person becomes a pilgrim is distress and warfare.

There's this warfare, but this utter feeling of stress in that warfare. Look at verse 7, the last verse, for I am for peace, but when I speak and notice there's a lot about speaking and lying and truth and stuff. But when I speak, they are for war. The situation is warfare. Look at verse 1.

I call on the Lord in my distress. The situation's warfare, the feeling is utter distress. It's a deep word. It's troubled. It's it's actually to to feel tight.

Yeah? It's it's the language of being hemmed in. You're boxed in. You're in prison. You're in a cave.

It's dark. You're hemmed in and you're very conscious that you can't really move because you're in this warfare of lies that are going on around you. Look at verse 5. Woe to me. That I dwell in meshach, that I live in the tents of teether.

Now you can't It's impossible to be in those 2 places. At the same time because they are actually hundreds of miles apart. But what he's saying is these are sort of symbolic places. What he's saying is that they're remote. They're miles away.

They're they're alien places. They're the home of distant foreigners. Unfriendly people that I don't know. They're not my type as it were. And that's how he feels.

He's feeling in the world that he's on the edge of the culture around him. He doesn't feel comfortable whoa to me. And wind distress, I'm not comfortable here. It's like I'm living in an alien land. This is not a place that I really wanna pitch my tent.

I don't wanna be here for long. And I feel like I'm dwelling in this place that I really don't fit in. Now why the distressed will have already said it? Because of lying lips and deceitful tongues. The weapons of the warfare that are causing great distress to him, the missiles and the tanks that are exploding around him to make him feel that he's at war.

Are lying lips and deceitful tongues. I'm for peace, but when I speak they are for war, their lies are shooting at me. And the pilgrimage begins here. These wonderful songs begin right here. It's rather dark.

These songs begin. This isn't a victory song. This isn't hallelujah. I'm saved at the moment. This is life.

This is what's gonna wake him up to the pilgrimage. This is the world he lives in. He's not in heaven. He's not having a heavenly time here. He's expressing his difficulties in the ordinary day to day life.

He is surrounded. He is being crushed. He is hemmed in by lies, and they're punching the spiritual breath out of him. Paul says that sometimes you feel so crushed, you don't even know know what to pray, and it's a bit of a feeling like this. But this is the world is in, which leads me to my second point.

So that's the situation warfare. That's the feeling distress. My second point is liars, liars everywhere. LIars, liars everywhere. Lying lips, deceitful tongues, everywhere.

But Rory's just done, I think, the last of of a little series that we do for seminars. Before the church service on a Sunday morning in Romans chapter 1 to 5. And really at the heart of Romans chapter 1 to 5 is chapter 3. Where it really says what people are like in the world. This is God's real description of us.

And in romans chapter 3, let me just read it out. He says this. There is no 1 righteous, not even 1. There is not even 1 righteous. There is no 1 who understands, there is no 1 who seeks God, all have turned away, They have together become worthless.

There is no 1 who does good, not even 1. This is God. This is God. Looking at our world, And he say, you think you're pretty good. You think you're seeking God.

You're not seeking me. You're seeking God. Of course, you go and seek other God, but you're not really seeking me. And I want to tell you my When I look down at this world, there's no 1 good, no 1 righteous. That's what God is saying.

Now we may say, well, I don't like a God letter. That's tough. That's what God thinks, and he's God. Then it goes on, but listen, just to prove it, to show what we're really like, says their throats are their throats are open graves. I mean, what an image?

Yeah? I mean, you you go to have your teeth done. Let's let's let's open your mouth. Oh, let me know. There's all dead bodies down the throat.

Their fronts are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin and misery mark their way.

And the way of peace they do not know, there is no fear of god before their eyes. There's no fear of god before their eyes so they can lie. They can be deceitful. There isn't a God of truth. I don't fear a God of truth.

I don't fear the truth. So I could lie. I can lie. He says. 1 psychologist sort of summing up our world says, the capacity for for the rational mind to deceive, manipulate, scheme, trick, Flexify, minimize, mislead, betray, per variegate, deny, omit, rationalize, bias, exaggerate, and obscure is so endless, so remarkable.

It is regarded as positively demonic. That's a non Christian psychologist. The ability of us humans to do all of that. We're living in a world full of lies, lies, lies everywhere. If you know this, don't shout it out.

Don't be cocky and prove that you know it. Yeah. Yeah. Because I want to show everybody up, but doesn't know it. I know it, so I can be cocky.

See, who do you think wrote this? Should come up? There should be a slide. I'll read it out. It's very interesting.

This person is talking about the big lies. Go for big lies. Not small lies. In the big lie, there is always a certain force of credibility. Because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deepest strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily.

And thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds, they morally fall victim to the big lie than the small lie. Since they themselves often tell small lies, in little matters, but would be ashamed to resort to the large scale falsehoods. It would never come in into their heads to fabricate colossal entries. And they would not believe that others could have the implegence to distort, sorry, to distort the truth. So what did I right to say?

Yep, impetus to distort the truth so infamously. Alright? Stay with me. Even though the facts that prove this to be So so may be brought clearly to their minds. They will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

In other words, even though they think maybe this is a lie, no, they're so full for the big lie. It's the big don't forget the big lie because we're so used to telling lies, little lies that actually we wouldn't think anyone would tell such a big Who who said that? Anybody know? Who knows? Who said that?

Boris, merely. Who said that? Hitler. Hitler said that. And that's what he did?

He went for the big lie. That's the world we're in. There is big lies And when you discover it, don't wanna live in this world any longer. Vers 2, save me lord, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. The message is wonderful on this.

First 2, deliver me from the lies God. They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth. Deliver me from the lies. And there are lies all around us. A world of lies.

There are the whole, what is called, the meta narrative. The big story is a lie that's told us today. Here's Eugene Peterson and he's he's he's he he says about the world's lives. He's the 1 that translated the message. Which is just terrific on these psalms by the way.

He says, the lies are impeccably factual. And listen to this, get this. This blew me away when I read The lies are impeccably factual. They contain no errors. There are no distortions of falsified data.

The lies are so big that everything is true, everything is factual, but then But they are lies all the same because they claim to tell us who we are and admit everything about our origins in God and our destiny in God. So David Attembro is 1 of the biggest liars on our TV. Whoa. So David Attembro The great treasure. He shows us God's world and never says God.

He's a liar. It's a meta narrative. It's extraordinary. He shows us facts. He doesn't distort those facts or he I know they did some years ago, but he they tried to sort that out.

Impeccably factual about a penguin, impeccably factual about the world. There's a new series that is just a delight to watch about the British Isles, impeccably factual, about the birds and the animals and the stuff that goes on in our own country. No forces. No false data. Yeah.

Absolute up to date scientific factual data. But David Attleboro is 1 of the biggest liars in our country. He never mentions God. I mean imagine that. Imagine being an artist and someone going around talking about the art and the paint and the things, but never saying who the artist is never giving praise to the artist.

Never saying that there is an artist behind this, suggesting that it was all just an accident. The news, full of facts, impeccably factual. No distortion of the facts, But totally lying, when is God mentioned in the news? Think about the vector narrative or the big story of your life. Yeah?

It's extraordinary. You are only an accident from some big bang that happened. You're a fortuitous occurrence of atoms. You're not that important therefore. There is nothing after death.

You just die and go back to atoms or if you want to listen to 1 of the other big liars, Brian Cox, you'll just go back to star dust. Star dust? This is I can't ever do him. But with his lying face, start us. He's a liar.

Yeah. That's all you are. So all you do now is to live for the now. There's no beginning. There's no end.

There's only the now. So you live for the now. And if life is going well, you're happy. And if life is not going well, you say, I need this I want that, I get I need that. And if you don't get that, then the now is depressing, and then therefore, you want out.

Think about your body. You can read articles. Can't you? You'll get articles. You know, there's articles on the internet.

When you get to my age, I don't know whether they know what shape I am or what anything. I just have to type something in the Internet and then advert will come out and get you get a flat stomach by April. Think come on. What? I'd have a flat stomach by April.

That's phenomenal. Yeah. You know, it's it's extraordinary. The lies that come out. 3 steps to health is it's all about running or recycling or eating properly or and your body is yours.

It's never that your body is actually meant to be the temple of the holy spirit and it belongs to God. And you have it on loan for a little while. It's always yours, isn't it? Think about how the culture lies to us when it endorses and promotes perversion. And calls it alternative lifestyle.

Think about how the culture kills unborn children and calls it a choice. Think about how the culture uses stories to normalize the things that are sinful. Before a holy god. Haven't you noticed the adverts? Haven't you noticed the films now?

You can hardly have a normal male and female relationship in a film anymore. If there is a love affair, it always has to be something else. Line lips, deceitful tongues. That's our world. You don't have to tell lies even.

You just manipulate the truth. Now culture is very, very good at that. Over simplifying, not listening to proper arguments, normalizing things, that are not normal. That's the lies of the world. Think of being personally lied to.

Some of you here have been personally lied to, and the liar has moved on in an easy way. They've made lies to you, and they've moved on, but those lies are festering and broken you and actually gone deep into the soul and still you're trying to work out your life through those lies. Many of us have had that. You suddenly find out a person is a liar and they're a Hippogrit. And everything they've been saying is just Hippogritical.

It's devastating, isn't it? If that's ever happened to you? Or what we lie to ourselves? Here's a psychologist, Jordan Peterson says, I have seen people define their utopia and then bend their lives into not trying to make it real. Then he says this, this is this is what people dream of.

I see myself retired sitting on a tropical beach, drinking margaritas in the sun, sunshine. This is this is what he says. That's not a plan. That's a travel poster. After 8 margaritas, you'll fit only to wait await the hangover.

After 3 weeks of margarita fill days, If you have any sense, you're bored stiff and self disgusted. In a year or less, you're pathetic. It's just an it's just not a sustainable approach to later life. This kind of oversimplifiedification and falsification is particularly typical of our stupid world that we live in. He didn't say that bit, but I did.

If you teach yourself that lies, then you are absolutely ridiculous. You are betraying yourself to a lie, aren't you? And if that's your dream world, sitting around drinking a few margaritas. If that's your plan and not God's plan as as Ben was telling us earlier on. Then in the end, those untruths will come back and bite you, and your either gets cyclical and hard and you'll never listen to anybody or the truth will just eat you alive.

Remember that song? It's amazing how we lie to ourselves. Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies. Do you remember that song?

Anybody know that? Tell me lies. Tell me sweet did lie. Yeah. What's a stupid thing?

Isn't it? I'd rather be lied to and pretend that we've got a relationship when this girl's going off doing whatever she wants with other blokes. But just tell me lies and I'll live with it. What a disastrous way to live? What will for blindness that goes on in us?

And sometimes that will for blindness happens because we've been so regularly lied to. And this is a problem. If our leaders are constantly lying and we know that our leaders are liars, then we will put up barriers and say, well, who can we trust? Who will I listen to? Lying.

It does so much damage. Doesn't it? So much damage. And behind all of those lies, of course, is Satan. The devil, the father of lies, the 1 Jesus called the father of lies, the liar from the beginning.

That's our world. Situation, warfare, it's despair, the world full of lies. Here's my third point. The destruction and judgment of lies and liars. Now here's the turning point because it's a hearing about the destruction of lies and lies.

That is gonna cause the person to go on the pilgrimage. In other words, follow God. Look at verses 3 and 4. Have a look. What will he, that's God, do to you?

So here's the writer talking about what will he do to all these lies. And what more besides you deceitful tongue? He will punish you with a warrior's sharp arrows with burning coals of the brine brush. See, liars are so taken up with their lies. They don't realize the truth that judgement's coming.

That's how liars lie to themselves. Again, the message let me read the message of verses 3, 3 to 3 to 4. Do you know do you not do you know what's next? Can you see what's coming all you bold faced liars? Do you know what's next?

You see what's coming? You boldface liars. Pointed arrows and burning coals will be your reward. That's what's coming. Again, they're so wrapped up in their lives.

They don't see that judgment is coming. It's 1 of the great lies of Satan if you know the story in in in the Garden of Eden. You will not surely die Of course, they did. And so there is this judgment upon it. He will punish you with a warrior sharp arrows with burning cores of the broombrush.

Judgment is promised judgment is promised on lies and that brings hope. The judgment on the lies brings the hope stirs up the pilgrimage. God will judge. God hates lies. The lying lips will not be the last word.

The God of truth will be the last word. The lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth himself, will judge and destroy the lying lips and the deceitful tongues and this world of lies. And that is good news. Which leads me then to my fourth point. The program starts by turning the pilgrimage starts by turning from the lies versus 1 and 2 again.

I will call on the lord in my distress and he answers me, save me, lord, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. Like verses 5 and 6 woe to me that I dwell in meshach, that I live among the tenths of Kaydah. Too long have I lived among the people who hates peace? When the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament saw the Lord in chapter 6 of Isaiah, he says woe to me. I am ruined.

For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the king the lord Almighty. That's often the first step to being a disciple or a follower of Jesus. That's often the first step on the pilgrimage. It's a great picture of repentance. It's seeing the world as it really is.

It's seeing the world from the lord almighty's view. It's seeing the world for what it is, liars, liars everywhere But it's not just seeing the world. It's seeing that I am actually taken up and part of this very well. Woe to me. I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips.

I and I live amongst the people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the king, the lord almighty. The world is against god. It makes war against the God of truth. But God is against the world and makes war against the world of lies.

Woe to me because I live amongst the people of ugly lips, but I have ugly lips. I've gone wrong with this lie. It's frightening stuff, isn't it? Now if you read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress, which you should because it's extraordinary. If you read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress, It was when Pilgrim in the city realized that the city wasn't the fun place after all.

It was the city of destruction that God will judge this city, that the judgment of God is going to be poor on this city. That the arrows are gonna be fired at the city. And when the Pilgrim there in Pilgrim's progress suddenly realized that he was in the city of destruction, and that he was carrying a weight of unclean lips on his back when he realized that his Christian journey started. The pilgrimage started the Prod to get out of a city of destruction and to head for the celestial city So look at verses 1 and 2. He says, I call to the Lord save me.

Look at verse 5 woe to me that I dwell here. I'm sick of these lies. I'm drowning in these lies. I'm part of the lies. I'm part and parcel of the lies.

Save me. I need saving. I can't save myself. And then not only is that the first step where you see that this world is a lying world. But you're homesick for something better and more glorious and more wonderful.

And so we find ourselves longing for a place where lies are stopped and where god's truth will live forever. Rescue me from these lies. Rescue me from the lies of the advertisers that pretend they know what I need and desire. Rescue me from the politicians that pretend to lead in godly ways. And as if they're concerned for my life, rescue me from the psychologists that want to reshape me.

Into something that is wrong. Rescue me from the lies of the religionists. Rescue me from the lies of the moralist. Rescue me, rescue me from myself, and the lies that I should find my journey within. Rescue me.

And that's the Christian walk and that's the Christian race and that's the Christian journey and that's where the pilgrimages begin. I mean, I know it becomes a cliche sometimes that life is a journey, but it is a journey. And the Christian life is a journey. And when you see and you begin the Christian life, when you see I cannot trust this world, I need to be saved and rescued by the lord. And when you know that, then you're at war verse 7.

For I am for peace, I am for peace, the the word means I am peace, but the battle begins. So when when Christian realized that the city was the city of destruction, he starts running away. All his neighbors start to try to grab him and bring him back and say, who do you think you are? Why are you having a go at us? And they try to pull him back.

And so now, for the Christian, to walk the way of the lord Jesus Christ, is to walk a warfare. If you're going to be a repentant person, repenting of the lies of the world, you're going to be a war with the world. If you're going to be about truth, you're going to be with war with the world. To my fifth point, then we finish. Jesus sang this song.

Did you know this? Jesus sang this song. Jesus sang this song for us And with us, he's singing it with us. Years after this song was written, 1 came into the world that tasted the fullness of this song, Emmanuel God with us. The 1 who's came to save us from lies.

Jesus learned these songs when he was a kid. You can see that in Luke chapter 2, when he goes up to the temple with his family. That's 1 of the journeys. He would have been singing this song. He would have learned this song and sung this song.

Jesus sang this song. Probably sang these songs with the disciples at the last supper of the Passover. 1 of the great feasts probably sang all of these songs in the last supper they're short, they're easy to do. It's a great soundtrack. But Jesus knew this world.

I mean, imagine this. This is the truth. He is the truth itself. The way the truth. And the lie.

That is Jesus. He is the truth. He's the god of truth and is truth. Is the embodiment of truth. What is truth?

Jesus. That's what truth is. Truth comes into a lying world. Just imagine the frustration of that. You've You know what it's like.

You've talked to someone. You know there are lying gifts. Don't you? You know they are absolutely lying to you. It's it's very frustrating, isn't it?

Because you look at their mouths. I don't know what you think. You look at their mouths. I think you utter liar. Everything you say is a lie.

We had a bloke in this church. He told me, and I didn't listen to him properly. But he told me that as a kid, he always lied even when he didn't have to. He made up lies all the time. He lived a liar, ruined people's lives in this church.

He was a liar. When you eventually know that he's a liar and you look at his lips and telling you a lie. It's amazing because he knows you know it's a lie. And yes, he's still telling you the lie. And you just think I can't be bothered to talk to you.

Haven't you ever said that to some people? I don't see any reason to talk to you. There's another blokey in the church. I used to do bible studies with him. He was such a liar.

Such a liar. I used to have a little I used to have a little tiny weedy office up a whole load of stairs. And I stood for some reason, he wanted me to be done bible studies with him. And I did bible studies with him. I I didn't allow him to come to church because he such a liar and he ruined people's lives, but he would do a bible study with me.

And he would meet me at lunchtime and come up into my little office. And I would say things like, oh, is it raining out there? And it's a yes. And I said, oh, no. I'm not gonna believe you because I don't believe you anything.

There is nothing I believe you about. I don't know whether it's raining or sunny out there. I have got no idea and I cannot trust you with anything. I used to actually speak to him like that, but he still came to bible says, I don't know why. Really odd.

There was nothing I could trust in with seriously. That Jesus comes into this world. The truth and has to hear all these lies. He has to watch a David Attenborough program and think I and the father and the spirit made these things and you've not even mentioned me. That's extraordinary.

You're showing people around my artwork and you haven't mentioned my name, and you're embarrassed to mention my name. And you don't even think I exist You're liar. And there's thousands of people watching this. It's extraordinary, isn't it? But when Jesus came into this world, he came into that womb.

And people were whispering, easy legitimate, easy legitimate, lying about immediately when he was born into this world, there were lies, weren't there? The devil came and accused him. People were accusing him of of ungodly things at his trial. All the lies that were poured out. This is the God of truth.

This is truth itself. Having to listen to this nonsense coming out of mouths. No wonder he didn't say things sometimes. Because he could have gone worse. Enough.

That's it. Not 1 single word more of your lies. He could have done that. He will do that. But he went through all of those lies to be murdered on a cross to take the punishment for our unclean lips.

To cleanse us from our sin, so that we may no forgiveness, that we may no truth, that we may no love We may know the God who so loved the world he gave his son. That's the world he came in. And when you know that, then you get up and you get on the Christian journey. And you become a pilgrim. That's the first Psalm.

Let's have a moment of thinking that through. And then I'll hand over to Ben to see what he wants to do. Father, would you forgive us for the open graves that are our throats Father, would you forgive us for coming before you with lips that worship you 1 moment, but with hearts that are far from you another. Father, would you forgive us for speaking to people about truth things? But withholding the truth about you.

Father, we are aware that we have pitched our own tent in Quida and in Michigan. And we've been happy to to dwell among Satan in this world. Father, we we cry out to you. We pray that you would deliver us and save us from ourselves, from our hearts, from our tongues, from your judgment that's coming. Father, thank you for the truth.

Jesus who came into this world and had to listen to the lies around him. How to breathe the air of untruth. And not just of his time, but of our time and of the lies and untroutes that we speak and breathe. Father, we thank you for that picture of Isaiah. Whose sin is taken from him as the coal from the altar touches his lips.

His sin is taken away from him and he's cleansed. Further, that's what we desire. And so I pray that you would move us to begin this Christian pilgrimage or for those of us on it to keep walking. Thank you for that land that we're going to, that is true and unstained. And even our own lips are made new again and our tongues are resurrected and glorified so that they will only be truth tongues.

We look forward to that day lord. Help us in this world pleased to be ever transformed. Into those people, into the likeness of Jesus. By the way, thank you for what we've heard. Please help us not to just go in 1 ear and out the other.

Help us to hold on to the truth. Hold on to the deep truths of the gospel. And help us to rejoice and sing these songs on our pilgrimage in Jesus' name on men.