Can God Lie?

Can God lie? Does He speak empty words?

Are all of His promises sure?

The bedrock of truth, is it found in His Word?

Is our hope and our faith so secure?

The opinions of the majority,

Can they be so far wrong?

The trend? The fashion? Society?

Isn’t it time to move on?

The Ten Commandments were fine for a day

When ignorance largely prevailed,

But a Virgin conceiving?  What?  Raising the dead?

And a man to a Cross being nailed?

Was all this but fable to lie in the dust

Of the centuries as they roll by?

Man’ s far more enlightened today than he was,

Religion is doomed to die!

Come on now! We’ve been to the moon and back,

And now we’re aiming at Mars,

We’ve D.N.A., technology

And science beyond the stars!

Computers, transport, TV and flight,

Education has opened the door

To knowledge that shows the mistakes of the past,

We now have so much more.

We don’t need control on our passions and loves

From outdated days of yore,

With birth control and abortion,

We’ve so much more to explore!

“Thou shalt not do this!  Thou shalt not do that!”

Hey!  Come man!  It’s different today,

We don’t want to hear talk of adultery

And sex outside marriage – no way!

Our children need freedom, they only live once,

Let them enjoy life while they can,

And a little white lie – why! everyone’s sinned!

So why so condemning, man?

But… can God lie?  Does God change?

Is His Word just as relevant today?

He’s “the same yesterday, and today and for ever,”

“Unchangeable!” doesn’t His Word say?

So, if the majority have got it wrong,

And God’s Word liveth and abideth for ever,

Is there more of God that I can know

Surpassing all human endeavour?

He said He’d give the Spirit of wisdom

And reveal the knowledge of Him,

Enlighten our understanding,

Know His calling deep within.

And the riches of the Glory

Of the inheritance of the saints,

Of His power, the exceeding greatness

To us who believe in His ways.

But I have not yet had all this, Lord!

I know nothing of what Your Word speaks.

Can it be? … Can it be possible

You’ll reveal to the man in the street?

“Exceedingly, abundantly,

Above all you ask or think,

To be strengthened with might in the inner man,”

From the ocean of His Glory to drink!

“That they may be one as We are one”

God wants His Church on earth

To not just accept the “status quo”

But to go far beyond the new birth.

The new birth is the mere beginning

Of a walk with God profound,

A babe needs to crawl, then develop and grow

And sense all the smells and the sounds ….

Of the big, new world he’s inherited,

He’s left the womb once and for all,

And the child of God is a son of God

And needs to walk and to run and not crawl.

With the knowledge of His will to be filled

In spiritual understanding,

In all wisdom walk worthy, from milk to meat,

In the knowledge of God abounding!

Can we really take God at His Word?

Are these platitudes of the absurd?

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear ever heard

Of all that God hath prepared!”

So how can we ever attain

To the deep things of God so obscure?

God says He’ll reveal them to us by His Spirit

Freely given to the holy and pure.

Purge out the old for sincerity and truth

For a Kingdom not in word but in power,

Be steadfast, unmoveable, abounding in God’s work,

Strengthened with His Word, God’s high tower!

Rooted and grounded in love,

Then able to comprehend

The breadth, the length, the depth, the height

Of Christ’s love, world without end.

That you – yes!  You – might be filled

With all the fullness of God!

“O Father! Have mercy and open my eyes

That all of this be understood.

That I in the midst of a world

So Godless, confused and lost,

May come to know You and be used

For Your service, whatever the cost.

I fear as I pray this prayer,

I tremble at what it might mean,

I’m not of the brave and the strong,

No hero, but You I believe.

You are God above all other gods

And Your Word alone shall prevail,

You gave Your back to the smiter’s thong

And Your hand to the brutal nail.

You hung and bled and died

Because love transcends all fear,

‘Gainst a tide of evil alone You stood

That today I might draw near –

And know You, O to know You! – my cry!

Forsaking self-interest, I would trust

In a God that never speaks idle words,

Gives His highest to those He loves.”

Peter Burt