[Darris McNeely] By now, you’ve probably heard the sad story of Brian Williams, the anchor of the NBC Nightly News, and his suspension for six months from that program for misstating the role that he played twelve years ago in Iraq, where he had said for many years that he was involved in a chopper being hit by an RPG during the Iraq War of 2003. And the reality’s come out now that his chopper was not hit, his helicopter was not hit, and that he was misstating the story through all these years, which was recently just found out.

It’s a sad situation to see anyone get caught up in something like that and then fall from grace, if you will, from a high-profile media job such as this. But I think there’s a lesson for every one of us to consider as we look at Mr. Williams and consider that – not that we should gloat or take any pleasure in what has happened, because in one sense, any of us who work in media in any position of trust and responsibility take a hit from something like this, and it causes people to look at us with perhaps a bit more critical eye – “Can I trust this person?”, “Are they telling me the truth?”. And I think that it – regardless of whether we’re in media or any walk of life, one lesson from this is important. And it’s a lesson that I was talking to a group of students with this morning, regarding what God says in Numbers 32:23, where He says that, “If you have sinned against the Lord, be sure your sin will find you out.” That’s such a stark principle from God’s word, that our sins will find us out.

I happened to be teaching the book of Acts and I was taking them through the story in Acts chapter 5 of two people in the book of Acts called Ananias and Sapphira, who had lied to the Holy Spirit, to God, and they were both struck down in that dramatic story in the book of Acts, because in their desire to look important or to look more generous than they really were, by money that they had given to the church, they’d actually postured and lied. And they paid a very, very stiff penalty for it. That story in Acts is an amazing story, and it’s a very sobering one.

And so, with this one in the headlines for us today, and still playing out, it’s a good morality lesson for each one of us, to recognize that sin has a cost – that any transgression of God’s law has a way, in time, of eventually coming out. The lesson? Don’t sin. And if we do, repent or to change or to admit, and not perpetuate a mistake that we might be making, whatever that might be. It’s a very important lesson. God’s word is a very powerful and sharp two-edged sword.

That’s BT Daily.  Join us next time.