Have We Become Comfortable With Lying? (Part 1)

This article comes from a devotional subject I posted a few days ago on my Facebook page entitled “Are You Being Deceived?” in which I posed the question of wether we are discriminating in the kind of people we fellowship with, or are we allowing people who lie to us and others into our lives? One person asked the question of “Is It Always Wrong To Lie” or are there situations in which lying is allowed by God. So let’s get started!

Let me say that I have strong convictions about this subject for a number of reasons, but I didn’t want to answer “off the top of my head” and thus miss some careful reasoning on the subject. So often I get irritated by Christians who hear a teaching on a subject and then embrace that teaching without ever reading and searching scripture to find out if the teaching is sound, or does it just sound good. I’m currently reading a great book by a good friend of mine who has served in YWAM, a world wide ministry, for the better part of 35 years. The book, titled, “Clues – How Can We Know We Know?” by Danny Lehmann, helps Christian believers know the facts about their faith that make Christianity the soundest and most logical faith to walk in. With this in mind, let me unpack my thoughts on the subject of lying from a biblical mindset.

We all have known people who take verses of scripture, often out of context, and build a legalistic rule they say people should never violate. Instead of becoming the loving people God intended, this kind of Christian makes people mean and unloving. The pharisees did this with the Jewish people. They read the scripture and never asked the question of why God is saying what he wrote. They then proceeded to become bitter religious legalistic leaders, making their followers worse than themselves, something God never intended to happen from reading the scriptures.

Matthew 23:15 

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”

Second, the apostle Paul made it very clear that when we read and use scripture without the help of the Holy Spirit, the very scripture we have embraced can become the means of killing our souls and the souls of those we influence. How sad when the scriptures, made for our good, become a tool of Satan to kill us. Both Old Testament and New Testament saints were never encouraged to trust their human reasoning and power alone in living as God intended. Rather, both were intended to look to the Lord in their pursuit of living a God ordained life.

2 Corinthians 3:6

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

With these things in mind, let’s look at at what the word of God says about lying in general and God’s attitude toward those who engage in lying.

First, God gave Moses the law by which the nation of Israel was to shape their living. Within that framework the major points could be boiled down to the ten commandments, which Christianity has also embraced as sound tenants for faith and lifestyle. Within the ten commandments the ninth commandment specifically warns against lying.

Exodus 20:16

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Now to be clear, the Ten Commandments teach the people of God how to treat God and our fellow man. The first four commandments deal with respect for and our priority of God and the last six deal with what loving our fellow man should look like. The ninth commandment speaks about not using our testimony about our neighbor to be twisted into lies about them.

Next is the passage in Proverbs where King Solomon writes that there are six things God hates and seven which are an abomination to him.

Proverbs 6:16-19

There are six things the LORD hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord among brothers.

Solomon boils down all the commandments of God which reflect God’s attitude towards things that make him mad. Lying is at the top of the list and truthfully they all deal with harming our neighbor. Although lying is the subject and the means of wounding others, in truth it is the motive of the heart that God looks at in the transgression. Consider another passage in Proverbs.

Proverbs 25:18

Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an ax, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow.

This passage is very descriptive about what happens when a person lies. Lying is presented and as a very destructive tool and not just a little thing. Today, the world is filled with so much lying that it’s hard to tell who is telling the truth about anything. It used to be we could evaluate a persons conduct and thus determine if they were chronic liars or that they just lied about of few things. Because we all are driven by the media and the internet today, if someone lies about someone or some company, the news goes around the world before anyone can verify the facts or reject the comments. We condemn people on the hearsay of a person or persons. We do so without taking the time to verify the facts, and a persons reputation can be ruined before the real facts come to light. Often, by then its too late to repair the damage, and the public moves on to the next lie. For many people today lying is not only a way of life it has become a craft.

Consider the statement that Jesus made about himself and then put the idea and the practice of lying in comparison.

John 14:6-7 

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.                                                                                       If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!”

We often look at wether a lie someone tells, or one that we tell, is all that important. From our limited perspective of facts we decide wether it matters or not that a lie has been spoken. Growing up in a family that did not believe in God nor follow him, lying was an every day occurrence. Lying for me became a way of life and the means of getting an advantage . . . or though I thought. Deep down I knew lying was wrong, but I rationalized it out that everyone lies, so who cares as long as you don’t get caught! Christ turned my world upside down morally, and lying was just one sin I had to stop practicing. From the struggle to reshape my behavior I learned to depend on the Holy Spirit and realized what a real advantage comes from trusting Him. It is often in our struggle to change that we see the power of God manifested in our lives.

From here we will continue exploring the power of lies, and wether all lies are judged the same by God. Lastly, I hope to look at whether some lies are appropriate to accomplish good ends: do the ends justify the means?

Questions:

1) After coming to Christ do you find telling the truth difficult  or telling lies difficult?  Remember that in following Jesus our goal is to become like him, not like the world.

2) Have you lied about things and later asked Jesus to forgive you or just assumed he already has? Remember 1 John 1:9 – “IF” you confess …

Reasoning the scripture so that we become more like Jesus.

Pastor Dale