When politicians lie to impose “their way of thinking” set over all of us, they do so to protect and project their “power.” Not to serve those they represent.
When businesses lie to sell their “product” as the most important product on earth, they do so trying to convince us that the possession of their commodity will change our life. Of course, making money for them.
When educators lie to convince us that their view of “life” is the most reasonable, they do so to manipulate us into accepting that theirs is the only view of life intellectually permitted. So, please send us all of your children so that we can undo the nonsense that you have taught them. And, give them a grand future of political correctness. Of course, political correctness as defined by we the educators!
When husbands and wives lie, it is all too often because they think that their spouse owes them happiness.
When religious leaders lie, they don’t want us to know how weak their spiritual life actually is.
On and on it goes, as the dangerous power of lying overwhelms us. Ultimately, lying subverts and corrupts human relationships. It breaks all the trust bonds upon which human relationships are built.
People call lying everything but lying. At worst, we say that we are obfuscating; “the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.” But, we also use a whole host of other words to attempt to hide that we are not telling the truth: exaggeration, selling, promoting, marketing, envisioning, even protecting. Not that any of these words can’t be acceptable. But, when they are used to “hide” something one does not want another to understand, or fully understand, we are lying.
God hates lying. Proverbs 6:16-19 - “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
Proverbs 12:22 - “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”
Psalm 101:7 - “No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.”
Leviticus 19:11-12 - "You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord."
Psalm 24:4-5 -“He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”
I am not sure that I could summarize the importance of truth and the destructiveness of lying any better than John MacArthur has said it in “The Destructive Sin of Lying, Part 1. Sept 20,1998”
“Nothing is more germane to human depravity than lying. We shouldn’t be surprised that depraved people lie. Psalm 58:3. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. That’s the first expression of depravity.”
In commenting on Romans 3, MacArthur adds, “Their throat is an open tomb, and with their tongues they have practiced” - what? - “deceit.” They open their mouth and it’s like the poison of a snake. The mouth is where depravity shows up most clearly, and it shows up in deception. I’m not surprised that unregenerate people are liars and deceivers. That is the most germane behavior to human depravity.
To lie is to identify, then, with the worst of human depravity. To lie is to identify yourself with Satan. This is a deep and endemic problem here. Wherever you have a child of Satan, that’s an unregenerate, unconverted person, depraved, you’re going to have a person prone to deception and lying. This predisposition to lying fits the proud, sinful heart of a child of Satan. And, of course, to keep a façade, there’s an effort to cover up, to avoid embarrassment, to find honor, to be self-protective, to avoid shame and accountability, while at the same time engaging in the sin….” (MacArthur)
Our complication is that confessing Christians also lie. Christians are susceptible to all of the sins of which the flesh is capable. BUT, having been made new by resurrection with Jesus, and being made new everyday by the Holy Spirit, we expect that the most obvious of sinful actions that God “hates” would fall away.
The admonition is continually necessary. Truth demands a rejection of deception, under any wording! So, even true believers need to take note of the origin of lying, “John 8:44 - “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
We need to embrace the nature of our Heavenly Father, Titus 1:2 - “In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.”
We need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us recognize the lies we are tempted to tell, and ask for power to overcome by telling the truth.
Colossians 3:9-10 - “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”
