Dr. Ron Sumners
April 18, 2004
“Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose that’s long as a telephone wire!” Probably all of us either said that or had it said to us when we were kids. It is a good thing that it is not really true. Otherwise, a lot of us would be in a lot of pain.
A minister announced that the next Sunday he would be preaching on the subject of lying and asked that they all read the 17th chapter of the Gospel of Mark to be prepared for the message. The next Sunday he asked, “How many have read the 17th chapter of Mark?” Almost all the congregation raised their hands. “Good,” the preacher said, “this is just the crowd that I need to talk to. There is no 17th chapter in the Gospel of Mark!”
Is there a time when lying is ok? How serious a matter is lying? Consider how serious lying would be if you were on the receiving end of these statements:
Firestone Official: “Your tires are safe.”
Presidential Candidate: “There will be no new taxes.”
Trial witness: “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”
Groom: “I will be faithful to you until death.”
According to Proverbs 6:16-19 there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush to evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among the brothers.
Yet as much as God hates lying, I doubt that there is a church or any group of people where there is not a large contingency of liars present. May I suggest that many of you have probably already lied to someone this morning. Just in case you want to take issue with that statement, let me share some of the common falsehoods and misrepresentations we are guilty of. See if you find yourself anywhere on the list. I assure you I am there. That is how I came up with the list.
1) When someone asks you on Sunday morning how you are doing, you say, “Fine.” Sunday morning, that morning that we’re supposed to be the most spiritual, is in reality the day that we lie the most. We put on our nice clothes to hide the sin that is inside. We plaster on fake smiles to hide hearts that are breaking. We answer, “I’m just fine,” to people when they ask us how we are doing even though our life may be falling apart. Why is that? Maybe we are scared that no one really cares, that no one has the time, or that someone would reject us if they really knew what was going on inside our hearts.
The Bible doesn’t speak of church as a place where perfect people come to congratulate one another on how perfect they are. It talks about church as a place where the hurting come to admit their hurt and find healing. The church should be the place where we are the most free to be ourselves and admit our weakness. That’s why we have come today – to admit our weakness before a holy God and to praise Him for His holiness and strength.
2) The policeman asks you, “Do you know how fast you were going?” You answer, “No, was I speeding?”
3) Someone calls you on the phone, and you step outside the door so that your wife or child can say that you are not in at the moment.
A salesman knocked on the door of a rundown apartment house in a low-rent district. The mother did not want to talk to the salesman, so she told her little boy to tell him that she was in the tub and could not come to the door. Her son answered the door this way, “We ain’t got no bathtub, but mom told me to tell you she’s in it.”
4) You’d really rather not go to work on Monday, so you call in sick and go shopping.
It hurts when we are lied to by our boss. But when we lie to get what we want, we seldom think of the ethics of it.
5) The last birthday you counted was over a decade ago. A mother and her daughter were out for a walk and met their pastor. “Is this your daughter?” he asked. “I remember when she was only knee high.” “Well she is twenty-four now.” The daughter, who was thirty-five, fainted on the spot. Later her daughter asked her why she had lied about her age. The mother responded, “I have been lying about my age for so long, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d have to start lying about yours too!”
6) You promise to spend more time with your family but you never get around to it.
7) The fish gets bigger every time you tell the story!
8) The cashier assumes that your children are under the age limit that gets the free meal at the restaurant, and you don’t correct the error.
9) Your wife asks how you like her new dress, and you tell her it is beautiful no matter what you really think. Let me tell you that in that case the greater truth may be your love for your wife, not the dress.
Why is it so important to tell the truth? Telling the truth gives evidence of a change in your life. Colossians 3:9-10 says, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices. . .” If we still lie, it shows that we have not put off our old self; our sinful nature.
In John 14:7, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth.” When you take Jesus as your Savior, you receive the Holy Spirit who lives within you and is to be in control of your life. If the “Spirit of Truth” is in control of your life, what should be flowing out of your life? Lying brings into question whether the Holy Spirit really has control of your life.
In a recent survey it was found that 15% of ladies tinted their hair, 38% wore a wig, 80% wore rouge, 98% wore eye shadow, 22% wore false eye lashes, 90% wore nail polish, and 100% voted in favor of a resolution condemning any kind of false packaging.
What if God could lie? What if all His promises were just a bunch of lies? You may have had people who made promises to you and then broke them. They promised they would always love you. They promised that they would never leave you. They broke their promises because they were weak human beings. God is very different from us. God cannot lie. Numbers 23:19 tells us, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?
The biggest promise that God ever made was that He would send a Savior to pay the debt that the sin of mankind incurred. What a promise! And He made good on the promise. God cannot lie.
Truth creates a spirit of trust; lies create a spirit of deceit and hypocrisy.
Do you know the truth that God wants all men to know? He wants them to know that they are sinners. He wants them to know that because of their sin, they stand condemned to eternity separated from God. It would seem that the nice thing to do would be for God to keep our dirtiness a secret and let us go on believing the lie that we have told ourselves. You know the lie I am talking about, don’t you? It is the lie that says that you are ok, that we’re pretty good, and that God is going to let us off the hook because we have been pretty decent people.
Proverbs 14:12 tells us, “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death.” The most unloving thing for God to do would be to allow us to continue to believe that lie without changing it. By telling us the truth, God has given us a way of escape.
There are many in the world today who will tell you that there are many pathways to heaven and it doesn’t matter which way you travel. But the reality is that there is but one way that leads to heaven, the rest lead to destruction. God has given us but one way to get to heaven, and that way is through Jesus Christ. You may say, “Isn’t that narrow minded?” It certainly is. It is as narrow as the Biblical truth.
How many of your neighbors and family are convinced that heaven is all about our goodness? Have you corrected that lie? Some people believe that God so loves that He would not send anyone to hell. Are you telling them the truth?
Mark Twain was right when he said, “The difference between a person who tells the truth and tells a lie is that the liar has to have a better memory.” Lies trap you because you have to live in your own false, little world that you have created. You can’t allow anyone to see the true you. You have to keep lying to cover the last lie you told.
Truth frees you to enjoy all the benefits and promises that God has offered you. When you are truthful about your sin, the truth frees you to enjoy God’s forgiveness. When you accept the truth that you are acceptable in God’s sight because of what Jesus did, you are free from worrying about the condemnation of other people. You become free!
Satan does not want you to be free. He is the father of lies. He wants you to be trapped, enslaved in his grasp. So, he puts lies in our path and in our minds to prevent us from coming to grip with the truth about ourselves.
Satan tells lies.
“God is out to stop your enjoyment of life.” John 10:10 tells us that God wants us to have life in abundance. Satan will tell you that the Ten Commandments, that we have been studying, were given by God to restrict you and to limit your freedom.
“What people think of you is more important than what you really are.” You will never find a place in scripture where Jesus got angry at a prostitute, a thief, a swindler, a murderer, or an adulterer. But Jesus did get angry at hypocrites – those who were more concerned with what people thought of them than they were concerned about actually being right in God’s eyes.
“You don’t need God’s forgiveness. You are a good person, and fine just like you are.”
You are good people. Some of the finest people I have ever known are sitting in this congregation today. If our goodness could get us into heaven many of you would already have your ticket punched! The problem is that no one gets good enough to earn heaven. It is a gift from God not a prize we earn or win. Our place in heaven is secured by what Jesus has done, not by what we can do for Him.
The biggest lie in Satan’s arsenal is the one that sends the most people to Hell. That lie is the simple little phrase we have heard all our lives, “Good little boys go to heaven!” I pray that your eternal security is invested with the blood sacrifice of Jesus and not your personal goodness. If not, you have no hope.
In the book of Revelation there is a litany of all those who will inherit the lake of fire. They will receive the inheritance of their spiritual father, Satan, who is the father of all lies. Revelation 22:15 tells us that the last to inherit damnation are all liars. He who has ears let him hear!
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