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  • Writer's pictureDr Darryl Soal

How do you cure lying?


How do you cure lying? How do we turn from lying to speak the truth? We will look at the ten commandments again. I want to emphasize on the ninth commandment, which simply says, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.” That is found in Exodus 20:16. How do we not give false testimony against our neighbour? Speak the whole truth in love, is another way of loving our brother or our sister. It is a way of loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. Speaking the whole truth in love, is stating that ninth commandment positively in this context. We honour other human beings by speaking the truth to them. Sadly, we destroy other human beings by dishonouring them through lies, by not giving them the whole truth in love. What's the big deal about lies? It seems like today everybody is lying, from the politicians down to the poorest person. It seems like lies are everywhere. We even have names for lies - little lies, white lies, even in the politicians. Winston Churchill called out a liar in parliament and he said to the liar,: “You're perpetrating a terminological inexactitude.” Well, whatever you may call it, it's lying.


Lies are said to be dangerous but why are lies so dangerous? Lies can be deadly. We think of the Garden of Eden. Satan’s lie, saying, “You will surely not die if you eat of this fruit.” That lie led to the destruction of our world and now, every human being is tainted by sin and we all are dying. Yes, Eve didn't fall down immediately, but she did die in time. We are all busy dying, as we to are affected by that lie? Lies are deadly. We need to learn to speak the whole truth in love. That is why we need to look at why God hates lies.


In a simple desert society, in which these ten commandments were given to the people of God, they were given when many of the crimes that were forbidden by God, carried the death penalty. If somebody had lied about another person, that lie could very quickly lead to execution for them within that society. One false witness, could succeed in deceiving a court that was instituted when they claimed that he or she committed a capital crime, and it could cost an innocent person their life. God put a number of safeguards in place to prevent lies leading to the innocent being put to death. One of the safeguards, was that the witness was to throw the first rock to crush the so-called guilty party. In a capital offense, they were to cast the first stone as Deuteronomy 17:7 tells us. Generally that danger of not only lying in court, but killing somebody with your own bare hands in an execution, would be a sufficient deterrent to deter liars from causing the death of innocent people.


Jesus dealt with a similar situation in John 8, with the woman caught in adultery ( a capital offence then). Then in John 8:43-45, He tells us about lies. He tells us that Satan is the father of lies and when he lies, he is speaking his native language. That means, when you lie you are involving yourself in the work of the devil. Thus God hates lies, as He sees the destruction that lies cause. We are involved in a great struggle between good and evil in this world. God made this world good. He created a good heaven and a good earth. We know in heaven a third of the angels rebelled against God when Satan led them and he was cast out of heaven. He later deceived Eve and sin came into this world and now we live in a fallen world. A world of brokenness. In this broken world, God comes to us in Jesus Christ, who is fully God and also became fully human for us. He died for our sins that we might be changed. With the plan that this world might be turned back to the truth. We now come to the realization that we are all sinners and Satan seeks to destroy this world by lies. He seeks to destroy what is good. He is described as a thief, who comes only to steal and destroy, and to bring about the death of many in this world. 2 Corinthians 4:4, tells us that Satan is the god of this age, who is blinding the minds of unbelievers so that unbelievers can't even believe the good news. The truth of Jesus Christ, the good news, is that God lets His light shine into this world. He brings His truth into this world. His truth is a person, Jesus Christ. If we will trust God, we might know this person Jesus Christ. God is committed to truth. God is committed to righteousness and God is opposed to sin and evil. That's why God takes lying so seriously.


It was the false testimony of liars that led to Jesus being condemned to death on a Roman cross. Not only that, they sought to conjure up evidence against the most innocent man, who was the truth. It was lies that caused His death. God hates lying because Satan wins when we lie. It led to Jesus's death, but that victory was a temporary victory because God works all things together for good and the resurrection is an indication of that. As Jesus lay in that tomb and His body decomposed, on the third day God's power raised Jesus, who is the truth, who had foretold that He would rise from the dead. On the third day, Jesus was raised; death, lies, Satan and sin were defeated forever as Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus calls you and me to live by the truth. God hates lies because lies, lead to death.


Now you might say, “Well, I'm not a liar. I'm a truthful person.” Well what are the different ways that we can lie? Firstly, one of the ways we can lie is when we lie to ourselves. Very few of us are strictly honest with ourselves. How many of us have said, “This chocolate won't do me any harm.” Later, we've gotten a waistline that tells a different story. How many of us see ourselves really as others see us? We as human beings are unique. We are self-conscious beings and we are aware of ourselves. As self-conscious beings, we sometimes even blush when we think of what we've done. We can so easily deceive ourselves. We need to remember that we can speak to ourselves and look at ourselves, from the outside and sometimes we can deceive ourselves.


Sometimes, we can speak ourselves into doing the right thing. Part of me, is conscious of me. That's why Romans 12:3, tells us, “Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought.” That means, we can think of ourselves in an objective way, or we can think of ourselves in a prideful way. We can think more highly of ourselves and in turn we can also think of ourselves more, lowly than we ought. We are creatures made by God of great value. We are also sinners that have sinned and rebelled against our Creator. Despite that, we are saved through Jesus Christ; when we trust in Jesus alone. That is why we need to sober up and think clearly about ourselves and not deceive ourselves. Self-delusion, is the first step on the pathway to insanity.


I remember a friend of mine, an artist, Loretta Cross-Watson, who painted a self-portrait. I looked at the self-portrait, at the time Loretta was in her 60s going on 70s. She painted this self-portrait, of a woman in her 40s. When I Iooked at the self-portrait and I looked at Loretta, I thought, either your glasses weren’t on or you're deceiving yourself, you're not as young as you see yourself. There are a few more wrinkles than you are seeing! Aren’t we like that? We tend to see what we like to see and we deceive ourselves at times. Self-deception, is a lie that can keep us from honestly going to God. Honestly confessing our sins, when necessary, and honestly finding freedom and forgiveness, when we turn from that sin. We can lie to ourselves. Are you lying to yourself perhaps? Have you done an objective inventory, not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought?


Another way we can lie, is when we lie to God. You may perhaps ask, “How can I lie to God?” The truth is: God knows everything , He knows absolutely everything. Despite this, we are told that people still try and lie to God. There is an example of this in the Bible, in Acts 5, when there was great need in the early church. There were many poor people and some of the wealthy people in the church sold their possessions to get food for those that were hungry and poor. There was a famine and we are told that Barnabas went and sold a property of his and brought all the money and gave it to the church in order to distribute it to the needy. Much the same way we have our benevolence fund in our church. An interesting thing had occurred. There was another couple by the name of Ananias and Sapphira. They looked at the acclaim that Barnabas got and they said: “We will also sell a property.” They sold the property and took only a portion of the money they got and gave that to the church and said: “We give all of this money from our property to help the poor.” They wanted the same acclaim. In that lie they told to the church, the Bible tells us that God said to them that they lied to Him and that lie led to the death of both husband and wife. This indicates that lies are deadly and we can lie to God.


This mindset of unrealistic thinking, that we can get away with things with God, is false. Maybe it's not major now, when we tell what we think are little lies. However, in due time, they cause destruction down the road as our heart is hardened and it ultimately dies. We can lie to God. We need to be very careful of what we say, especially, in our singing. Tozer observed that we lie when we sing: “I surrender all,” but do not really give our all to God. We can lie to ourselves and we can lie to God.


There's a third way we can lie and that way is to lie to other people. This is the way we generally think of lying but there are different types of ways we can lie to other people. Firstly, the destructive lie. The destructive lie arises out of a malicious intent, when our heart is angry with somebody and we try to hurt them, perhaps the way they have hurt us. Out of unforgiveness we seek to destroy them with our lie. Out of malicious evil in our hearts, we hinder somebody by lying. You can think of Potiphar's wife, who wanted to have an affair with Joseph, in the Old Testament. When Joseph fled from that temptation, she accused him of rape. Her lie which was malicious and put Joseph in jail for years. A gossip may be shocked to be called a malicious liar but that is what gossip is; it's a malicious lie. Gossip includes malice and deceit.


Another type of destructive lie is propaganda. Propaganda is usually used in war. The truism is that “in war, the first casualty is truth.” We observe in the Ukrainian war, where Russian soldiers and the Russian population are told one thing and the western world and Ukraine are told another. Somewhere between all these lies there is the truth. Lies defeat themselves. Propaganda is something that causes nobody to believe any politician. This is dangerous because sometimes there are honourable men and women seeking to serve the public for good, so lying can be destructive.


Lying to people can also be a defensive lie. Think of Peter's lie when he was asked whether he was a disciple of Jesus and three times he denied Jesus - out of being defensive. Defensive lies are the most common type of lie among little children. When they're caught out in disobedience they will lie because they don't want to face the consequences of their actions. They lie out of fear. Fear begets another fear, the fear of being found out. That is why it is better to have an immediate ordeal rather than to have a long unhappiness. We are to confess our sins, admit to our wrongs and tell the truth. We are to speak the whole truth in love, rather than having a defensive lie.


Thirdly there is a defective lie. What is a defective lie? This includes, firstly, careless words - like passing on gossip. You might not have lied in the first place, but you pass it on. You tell the story to somebody else, you slander another person. You may perhaps not like that person, or maybe that person hurt you and that little bit of gossip you pass on, becomes a chain that leads to destruction. That is a defective lie. That careless lie.


There is also a defective lie in boastfulness. When we brag, boast and we show ourselves up in a favourable light. While that happens easily, we need to see that often in our youth, when we exaggerate about how bad we are, to perhaps fit in with the peer pressure around us and we forget that the hardest truth to tell, is the truth about ourselves. We need to be careful of boastfulness or speaking more highly of ourselves than we ought.


Then there's also the defective lie of silence. Silence can be a lie when it avoids trouble. Silence that avoids trouble is a coward's refuge and it shows a support for the wrong. In other words when we are silent, evil flourishes and it allows evil to grow. In our day and age, we are not to be silent but to speak the whole truth in love to one another.


Another way that we can have a defective lie. It's what is called a half-truth. People say, “Well, I'll just tell half the truth, not the whole truth.” A half-truth is often more dangerous than an all-out lie. We read about that in Romans 6, when some people came up with the half-truth. It says that we're forgiven by God's grace, but does that means we can sin all the more. That's a half-truth. Truly we are forgiven by God's grace but now out of forgiveness we are to reflect that forgiveness by gratitude. A gratitude that is shown in obedience to God's word. We are to do what God says and not believe the half-truth, remember in the Garden of Eden. It was a half-truth that “you will surely not die,” because Eve didn't fall down straight away. She only died many years later. Yet in that instant, she was dead spiritually to God and she later began to die physically. Her relationship with her husband began to die, Adam blamed her for the sin and Eve blamed the snake which led to a breakdown in all relationships. It also led to the breakdown of the environment. All the problems we have today can be traced back to that half-truth that Satan told. There are many different types of lies. We can lie to ourselves. We can lie to God. We can lie destructively, defensively or defectively to others.


What is the cure? Let's look at the cure for lying. We find that cure in Ephesians 4, from verse 17 onwards. Firstly, we need to learn the truth. We need to learn the truth in Ephesians 4:21, it tells us that Jesus is the truth. Do you know Jesus Christ personally? Do you not just know about Him, but do you know Jesus? Have you got to know Him better with every passing day? The truth is found in Jesus alone. Jesus is the truth. You might say, “I’m a good person.” However, the Bible says “no!” We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's a little bit like saying, “Look, I've got shiny white teeth.” Until we hold up a shiny white paper to our teeth and we see that our teeth are quite yellow compared to the white paper. That's the reality. When we compare ourselves with Jesus, we see how far we fall from God's standards. Jesus was the second Adam, the Adam that never sinned. The Adam that died in your place and mine. He now can offer us salvation as God, as the infinite and powerful God, if we will come to Him for salvation.


We need to look at our lives, when we think we're good, we're not really good. I always struggle with that greeting response we have, “How are you?”… “No I'm good.” The truth is nobody is good - only God is good. The Bible says that Jesus pointed people to the Father and questioned whether they saw Him as good. That's really the question. We are all sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God and we all need Jesus. The truth is a person; the truth is Jesus Christ. Lying undermines the truth. Lying undermines Jesus. We see that in society, as society has rejected Jesus and the Christian message. It has led to justice declining. It has led to financial ruin for nations. Our own nation, has moved away from God, it is struggling and people that once loved God, have grown cold. We've seen corruption rise as truth declines. We've seen politicians misrule if they lie. You and I need to firstly, learn the truth. We need to pray that all of South Africa knows Jesus. The question is: do you really know Jesus? Do you know the truth?


If the cure for lying is to learn the truth, the second part of the cure for lying is to love the truth. That means, there should be no unwholesome talk that comes out of your mouth, as Ephesians 4:31 puts it. “There must be no malice,” where you're trying to hurt people with your words or the way you say it. Because as Ephesians 4:30 says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” Have you ever thought that God is saddened and grieved? Jeremiah says that he even weeps over our sin. Have you ever thought that your sin causes grief to your Creator? Jesus Himself wept over Jerusalem because they would not accept Him as the truth, the way and the life. Lying is counterproductive. Lying destroys this world.


If we are to learn the truth, who is Jesus, and love the truth who is Jesus; we must also live the truth. That's the third key in the cure for lying. We need to live the truth and make sure that our life is a life lived with integrity. We need to be able to live a life that is so full of truth, that we are faithful to our Saviour. People may lie repeatedly about us. Despite this, we are to stand for Jesus Christ in an age of lies. We need to stand for truth. Stand for all that is true in the justice system, in the political system, in the social system, in which we live. In the church, we are to deal with the truth. You may be mocked. Maybe you will be ridiculed, scoffed at or even persecuted. Jesus said that blessed are you when you are persecuted for His name's sake.


The truth may hurt at times but lies do more than hurt. They cut deeply, wound, leave scars and can even kill as we've seen. Speak the truth, the whole truth in love. God is a God of truth because He is the truth, we are to speak the whole truth in love, we are to put off all falsehood. We are to put off falseness in relationships, our relationships can only succeed when we are governed by truth. A lie destroys like the devil destroys. Lies destroy all sorts of levels of society. Lies destroy business contracts, marriage contracts, lies destroy promises and covenants. Lies destroy trust and people's faith. You are worth being spoken to truthfully. You are worthy of truth. Are worthy of being trusted as one of our Creator’s creatures? Express that worth by not lying. Speak the whole truth in love to everybody.


Stop lying. Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to God. Stop lying to others. Own up to your sin of lies. If there is any lie, anywhere, ask for God's forgiveness today and His cleansing by His Holy Spirit. Ask God for the power to change your heart from the inside out. Ask Jesus Christ, who is the truth, to come into your life and to live in you that Christ might shine from you in a broken and devastated world. That you speak the whole truth, in love. As you speak Jesus to this world, as you live the truth in this world, so turn from all lies. Turn from all works of Satan to Jesus Christ who is the truth.


Join me in prayer as you cry out to Jesus and say :”Oh Lord Jesus, save me. Forgive me my lies. Forgive me of any untruth in my life. Forgive me for deceiving myself. For lying to you my God. Forgive me for lying to people. Maybe in small or big ways but forgive me all my lies and help me now Lord Jesus to know You, the truth. Not only to learn about You but to love You as the Truth and not only to love You as the Truth but to live in the truth. To live in You Lord Jesus. Jesus save me I pray and lead me into all truth, as I not only read Your word and apply it in own my life, but that I then speak the whole truth in love to everybody around me as I share You with people. Please Lord Jesus change me by Your supernatural power I pray, amen”.


Well may your life be a life of truth. Live to the glory of God and to Him be all honour and praise and glory now and forever. Amen.

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