Do Not Lie To One Another Text: Selected Scriptures Series: One Another Statements of the New Testament [#11] Pastor Lyle L. Wahl March 20, 2011 Theme: Put on your new nature, created in God s likeness in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Introduction It s said that a pastor once told his congregation, Next Sunday I ll be preaching about the sin of lying. To prepare for the sermon, I want all of you to read John 22 this week. The next Sunday as he began his sermon, the pastor asked, Would all of you who remembered to read John 22 this week please raise your hands? Every hand went up. He smiled and said, John only has 21 chapters. Now let s talk about lying. Ouch!! The One Another statement we are considering this morning is found in Colossians 3, Do not lie to one another (9). Why is it that the words lie, lying and liar are softened with words such as white lie, are obscured with terms such as misspoke, are avoided with answers such as not that I can recall? And why is it that Christians sometimes try to avoid, and feel uncomfortable with the subject of lying? What is a lie, anyway? Why make a big deal about lying? How do we develop a truthful, lie-free character? Let s see if we can shed some light on these questions as we think about lying and the truth. Our central focus is from Ephesians 4:24, where the apostle Paul says put on your new nature, created in God s likeness in righteousness and holiness of the truth. What Is A Lie? Let s look at defining a lie, or lying. Basically a lie is an untrue or false statement for the purpose of, with the intent to deceive. First, the statement is not true, but false. However, all untrue statements are not lies. In the time when people universally thought the earth was flat, and said that if you sailed too far you would fall off, they were making untrue, false statements, but were not lying. That leads us to the second aspect of lying knowing the statement I make is not true. If I would say, The world is flat, I know that is not true. I have seen pictures of earth taken from space. The third aspect of a lie is the purpose or intent. A false statement is a lie when
it is not true, when I know it is not true, and when I intend to deceive or give the wrong impression. If I would tell you The check is in the mail, when in fact it hasn t been written and I want to get you off my back, I would be lying. So, again, a lie is an untrue or false statement for the purpose of, with the intent to deceive. With that foundation, let s look at some of the ways of lying. It is important to remember that we can lie without saying a word. If someone asks which way to go to get to Calgary and I point north, knowing I am pointing north rather than south, I am lying. How do people lie? Let s count some of the many ways. We start with the little white lie. This is a well-intentioned lie seen as being unimportant because it usually is told to be polite or tactful, and is seen as harmless. If Anita tries a new recipe that I hate, I could lie and tell her I like it so as not to hurt her feelings. Then there is the half-truth. This is a partially true statement intended to deceive or mislead. It can leave out some important facts, or put forward just part of the truth as if it were the whole truth. Half-truths are all too common in all areas of life. In politics, some think they are so common as to be required. One writer states, Now we expect many things of politicians in a well- functioning parliamentary democracy. But living in truth is not one of them. In fact the essence of democratic politics might rather be described as working in half-truth. Parliamentary democracy is, at its heart, a system of limited adversarial mendacity, in which each party attempts to present part of the truth as if it were the whole. 1 Perjury is deliberately making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath in legal proceedings. It is a crime. The Criminal Code of Canada states that Every one who commits perjury is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years. 2 Bluffing is a lie that some parents tell at times. They might say to their twelve-year-old child, If you do that one more time, you will be grounded until you re 18! What about stretching the truth? Basically, this lie is to embellish, to exaggerate. One mother was trying to teach her twelve-year-old son that stretching the truth was in fact lying. He told her, Mom, even my teacher, Mr. Casey, says it s okay to stretch the truth. Her son explained that his teacher told the class about filling out a job application for a sales job when he was a teenager. Since he had no sales experience, Mr. Casey asked his dad if he should lie or tell the truth. Got anything in your pocket you can sell me? his dad asked him. Mr. Casey had held out a pocketknife, and his father had paid him 50 cents. There! Now you have experience. Mr. Casey ended his story by saying that sometimes you have to stretch the truth to get what you want. 3 2
What about the lies to children about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the tooth Fairy? What about lies to protect ourselves or others? If a person might get angry or even harm you or someone else if you answered that person s question honestly, what do we do? Do we lie, reveal the information, or do we refuse to respond? There are other ways we can lie, but this gives us some of the overall picture. How prevalent is lying? Let s consider some numbers. First, the situation today is much the same as it has been throughout human history because human nature is the same. King David cried out to God, Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases to be, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak falsehood to one another; with flattering lips and with a double heart they speak. 4 The prophet Isaiah commented on his day, No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly. They trust in confusion and speak lies; they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. 5 The Jospehson Institute of Ethics states its mission is to improve the ethical quality of society by changing personal and organizational decision making and behavior. 6 They do research and provide resources to the public and private sectors. For a number of years they have issued a Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth. The 2010 Report Card is based on a survey of 43,000 high school students in public and private schools in the United States. 7 The first item on the survey was It s important to me to be a person with good character. 92.8% agreed with this statement. 92% agreed with My parents/guardians always want me to do the ethically right thing, no matter what the cost. 96% said It s important to me that people trust me. 92% said they were satisfied with their own ethics and character, and 79% said that when it comes to doing what is right, they were better than most people they know. This sounds good! But there is more. 80% reported they had lied to a parent about something significant one or more times in the last year, and 61% had lied about something significant to a teacher at school in the last year. 80% admitted to copying another s home work one or more times in the last year. 59% confessed they had cheated on a test at school once or more in the last year. 41% said they sometimes lie to save money. The last question was How many questions on this survey did you answer with complete honesty? Just over 74% said they answered all of them honestly, leaving almost 26% who did not. 7 There is a disconnect between how they see themselves and what they say they actually do. 3
It may be one thing to think that others lie, and that we are better than others when it comes to doing what is right, when it comes to not lying. But we need to do our own report card, to check up on how truthful we really are. Why Not Lie? Because lying is not just out there with those other people, we need to touch base with some important facts. Why not lie? There are many reasons. Lying both builds and reveals a character of deceit. Lying hurts others as well as ourselves. The first 12 verses of James 3 deal with sins of speech, including lies, and how they can ignite huge forest fires which devastate many. The story is told of a young man in the Middle Ages who confessed to a monk that he had sinned by slandering someone. He asked, What should I do? The monk told him to get a chicken, pluck its feathers and place a feather on every doorstep in town. The young man did this and returned asking, Now what? The monk told him to go and pick up all the feathers. The young man protested, I can t do that! They ve blown all over town! And so it is with your lies, the monk said, the damage they have done cannot be retrieved. Among the many reasons for not lying, let s touch on a few that relate both to God and ourselves. First, God is truth, He cannot lie, and we are to be like Him. God is truth and always and only speaks truth. When the prophet Samuel announced God s judgment on King Saul, he told the king, the Glory of Israel [i.e. God] will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind. 8 King David declared that God s words are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. 9 Paul reminded Titus that God cannot lie 10, and the writer of Hebrews tells us it is impossible for God to lie. 11 We are to put on our new nature, created in God s likeness in righteousness and holiness of the truth. So God gave the specific directive and broad principle in the Ninth Commandment, You shall not be bear false witness. 12 And so Paul wrote, Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices. 13 We see the negative and positive sides of this in Ephesians 4:29, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. I cannot say that I am growing, maturing, becoming more like Christ if I am not growing in truthfulness. Then too, the Bible tells us that God hates lying. Proverbs 6:16 says There are six things which the LORD hates. Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him. The second thing on this list is a lying tongue (17). God told the people who came back to Israel from captivity to speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace. 14 And also, 4
let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate, declares the LORD. 15 So I should never think, I can never afford to think, God will understand, or that God will not take seriously any lie I might consider or actually speak. God hates lying. Flowing from this, the Bible tells us that God judges lying. God s truthfulness as well as holiness demands judgment on sin, including the sin of lying. In the kingdom of Israel God instructed that if someone was found to have brought a malicious, false charge against another, that liar was to be punished by doing to him just as he intended to do to his brother. 16 Jesus told us, every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. 17 As the Bible closes and God describes people who have not put their faith in Christ as Savior and so will spend eternity bearing the just punishment of their sin, one of the seven characteristics of this group is that they are liars. 18 Lying is a characteristic that comes from the sinful nature, yes, from Satan, as Jesus said in John 8:44. God judges lying. While believers will not be judged for their sins because they have been placed on Christ who paid them in full, God disciplines us here and now, just as parents discipline their children. 19 A striking example of this is in the book of Acts, chapter 5. After the birth of the church at Pentecost, thousands of people who accepted Christ as Savior stayed on in Jerusalem to learn. As they ran out of resources people pooled what they had. Some even sold land and gave the proceeds to help. Ananias and his wife Saphaira wanted to do that as well. They sold a piece of property. For some reason they decided to keep part of the proceeds and give part to the church, which was fine and good. But, they lied by telling the church that their gift was the entire proceeds of the land. You may recall the story. As Ananias brought the money and his lie to Peter and the other apostles, God revealed the lie to Peter, who challenged him. God disciplined him for that sin by taking his life then and there. When his wife came later, not knowing what had happened, Peter confronted her. God disciplined her for her lie by taking her life then and there. Why is lying not a trivial matter? Because God is truth, He cannot lie and we are to be like Him. Because God hates and judges lying. How Do We Develop A Truthful, Lie-Free Character? We need to put on our new nature, created in God s likeness in righteousness and holiness of the truth. But how do we do that? How do we develop a truthful, lie-free character? There are three things that, while not exhaustive, are critical to doing this. First, realize that building character begins with the heart and mind. Proverbs 27:19 states a fundamental principle in an analogy, As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man. The heart, the core of our being, is who and what we really are no 5
matter what others may think or say, no matter what we may think or say. The process of how our heart and mind develop is stated a few chapters earlier, as he [as a person] thinks within himself, so he is. 20 Jesus put it this way, the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. 21 And again He said, the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 22 In the early days of computers some people thought they were almost magical devices that could do amazing things all on their own. Those who knew the computer s limitations as well as strengths, developed an acronym to help make a point, one which has almost been forgotten now, GIGO Garbage In, Garbage Out. That s also true of our minds and hearts. And so to develop a Godly character with truthfulness, we need to understand it begins with our inner thoughts, with our heart and mind. Solomon instructed his son, God instructs us, Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. 23 With this firmly in place, we then must make sure that we are feeding on the truth. This makes sense, and is absolutely vital. Paul opened the application section of Romans by telling us to present ourselves as living and holy sacrifices to God, and to no longer to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. 24 God s word is truth, and we are made truthful and holy through His word. 25 James says the tongue can bless our Lord and Father and also curse men. 26 So, as Paul did, we are to renounce the sinful, false things and take in and display the truth. 27 The process has to include taking in Scripture reading, listening to, thinking about, apply the Bible. Then, we must choose the kinds of thoughts we allow to take residence in our minds. Philippians 4 tells us what we must focus on, must think about if we are to have God s peace. These same things are also essential for developing a truthful, lie-free character. The first thing on the list of things to fix our minds on is whatever is true (8). Then, one more thing. To develop a truthful, lie-free character we must be accountable to one another. We often, and rightly, turn to James 5 for guidance on prayer for healing. James says, Therefore [i.e. to be healed in response to prayer] confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed (16). Down through the years the church has understood and not understood, practiced and not practiced this truth correctly. The role of confession goes beyond forgiveness and healing. It also is essential to growth. Those who had true faith in God who heard John the Baptist preach confessed their sins, and not silently. 28 Jesus taught that confession of sin to those we have sinned against was so important that if God brings it to mind while we are in worship, we are to leave, get things straight and then return to our worship. 29 6
What s the connection to overall spiritual accountability? Just as we are accountable to God and must confess our sins to Him for full, unrestricted fellowship, we also must clear up any and all things with others, regardless of who we know or think is to blame. An old guideline still is a good one confess as widely as the sin is know. We talked about this a few weeks ago when we looked at forgiving one another. This accountability of confession goes beyond the confession of sin. It extends to our dreams and disappointments, our victories and failures. Some strengths of AA groups include the support and accountability from fellow alcoholics. All believers need at least one person, preferably more than one, they can talk with, be totally candid with; be mutually supportive and encouraging, examine, exhort and, yes, also even rebuke when necessary. Developing a truthful, lie-free character calls for being accountable to one another. Conclusion. Do not lie to one another. Put on your new nature, created in God s likeness in righteousness and holiness of the truth. How important is this for you and me today? Think back to that one writer s comment, Now we expect many things of politicians in a well- functioning parliamentary democracy. But living in truth is not one of them. 30 What is expected of us, those Jesus Christ bought with His blood? What does God expect of us? What does the world expect of us? What do we expect from each other? What do we expect from ourselves? The expectation is to put on our new nature, created in God s likeness in righteousness and holiness of the truth. As you think this over with God now, thank Him that in His love He has accepted you as you were, accepts you as you are, and that He also is working, not giving up on making you a person of truth, a person more and more like Jesus Christ. Perhaps He has brought to mind some specific incidents or even patterns which are not truthful, but false, even lies. Confess them to Him. Repent, or turn from them by stating your commitment to be a person of truth in those things. Ask Him to have the Holy Spirit keep you sensitive to any lapses and to point them out to you quickly so you can turn to Him for strength. 7
As well, thank God for the person or people with whom you are open and candid people with whom you share mutual accountability. If you don t have anyone like that, ask God to help you as you think about possibilities, and to lead to you to someone. 1 Timothy Garton Ash. Cited in The Revolution of 1989, Vladimir Tismaneau, editor. New York: Routledge, 1999, page 134. 2 Criminal Code of Canada. Section 132. <http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/c-46/fulltext.html>. Accessed 16 March 2011. 3 Mayo Mathers. Stretching the Truth. <http://www.kyria.com/topics/spiritualformation/ theologyspiritualissues/10.70.html>. Accessed 16 March 2011. 4 Psalm 12:1-2. 5 Isaiah 59:4. 6 Josephson Institute of Ethics. <http://josephsoninstitute.org/about.html>. Accessed 16 March 2011. 7 The Ethics of American Youth: 2010. <http://charactercounts.org/programs/reportcard/2010/ installment02_report-card_honesty-integrity.html>. Accessed 16 March 2011. 8 1 Samuel 15:29. 9 Psalm 12:6. 10 Titus 1:2. 11 Hebrews 6:18. 12 Exodus 20:16. 13 Colossians 3:9. 14 Zechariah 8:16. 15 Zechariah 8:17. 16 Deuteronomy 16:16. 17 Matthew 12:36. 18 Revelation 21:8. 19 cf. Hebrews 12:4-11. 20 Proverbs 23:7. 21 Matthew 12:34. 22 Matthew 15:18-19. 8
23 Proverbs 4:23-24. 24 Romans 12:1-2. 25 John 17:17. 26 James 3:9. 27 cf. 2 Corinthians 4:1-2. 28 cf. Matthew 3:6; Mark 1:5. 29 cf. Matthew 5:23-25. 30 Ash, page 134. 2011 Lyle L. Wahl Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. 9