The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, November 24, 2002, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Now one of the passages to which
we will turn in the course of our study this morning is Proverbs
chapter 6, and I want to read this portion before we pray and
then take up our subject for the morning. Chapter 6. I shall read verses 16 to 19. There are six things which the
Lord hates. Yes, seven, which are an abomination
unto Him. haughty eyes, a lying tongue
and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that divides wicked
purposes, feet that are swift in running to mischief, a false
witness that literally breathes out lies, and he that sows discord
among brethren. Let us pray together. Our Father, it is a sobering
thing to read that you hate anything. But when we read of the things
that you hate, and the things that are an abomination unto
you, and they touch so closely who and what we are, We tremble
before you, and we pray this morning that your word will come
as a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces, as a two-edged sword
that cuts and divides. Lord, we ask that none of us
will sit here this morning thinking that we are but mere spectators. Engage our hearts. Engage our
minds. Engage our affections. Engage
our wills. And have dealings with us in
grace and in mercy, we plead for Jesus' sake. Amen. Last Lord's Day morning I indicated
that I would be preaching several brief series of topical messages
under the general heading, Now Concerning, following the pattern
of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians in which he addressed several
specific pastoral concerns relative to the Corinthian Church Introducing
each of those unrelated issues with the words, now concerning,
I will be doing a similar thing. I don't do so because I think
I'm an apostle, but simply because I find the apostle's precedent
a helpful framework within which to work. Now the first of these
brief series I've entitled, Now Concerning the Use of Our Tongues. And in the first sermon last
Lord's Day dealing with that subject, I sought to do but one
thing, and that was to demonstrate from the Scriptures the profound
significance of this issue of the use of our tongues, or subtitle,
the use of my tongue? What's the big deal? And in seeking to demonstrate
the big deal, in seeking to lay out the profound significance
of this issue of the use of our tongues, I laid before you five
categories of indisputable biblical truth. Number one, according
to the scriptures, the pattern of the use of our tongues constitutes
an incisive revelation of the true state of our hearts. Matthew 12, 34 and 35, Romans
3, 13 and 14. Secondly, according to the scriptures,
the pattern of the use of our tongues constitutes an accurate
test of the reality of our professed Christian experience. James 1
and verse 26. Thirdly, according to the scriptures,
the pattern of the use of our tongues constitutes an accurate
index of our general progress in practical godliness. James
chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. Fourthly, according to the scriptures,
the pattern of the use of our tongues constitutes a significant
part of our evangelical keeping of the law. And I did a brief
survey of commandments three through nine demonstrating that
the tongue is vitally involved in the keeping of those specific
commandments. And number five, according to
the scriptures, the patterns of the use of our tongues will
constitute a major factor of our judgment in the last day
Matthew 12 verses 36 and 37 And I trust with these five categories
of biblical truth that I have persuaded your judgment that
this matter of the use of your tongue for our deaf and hearing
impaired people, the use of your hands to express the thoughts
of the mind and of the heart, the use of our tongues is indeed
a matter of profound importance to each one of us. Not a one
of us, from the youngest to the oldest, can afford the luxury
of being indifferent to this subject unless you are indifferent
to where you stand before God right now, unless you are indifferent
to the true state of your heart right now, unless you are indifferent
to whether or not you have true religion right now, unless you
are indifferent to the law of God right now, and unless you're
indifferent to the day of judgment right now, and if you're in that
condition, may Almighty God have mercy upon your poor, dead, blind,
indifferent souls. Now assuming, assuming, I trust
that none sitting here this morning are in such a wretched and pathetic
condition, but that I am speaking to those who have varying degrees
of genuine concerns with respect to those five categories of biblical
truth, I want to begin to consider with you from the Scriptures
the major sins committed by our tongues. And as we begin this
aspect of our study, I want to ask you several very pointed
questions. Question one, what sin of the
tongue do you think is addressed most frequently in the Bible? What sin of the tongue do you
think is addressed most frequently in the Bible? Secondly, what
sin of the tongue most clearly reveals the true condition of
our hearts according to the scripture? If our tongues reveal our hearts,
what sin of the tongue most clearly reveals the state of the heart,
according to the Bible? Third question, what sin of the
tongue is most destructive of meaningful, stable, satisfying
interpersonal relationships? Husband, wife, parent-child,
child-parent, child to teacher, sheep to shepherds. According
to the scriptures, what sin of the tongue is most destructive
of meaningful, stable, satisfying human interpersonal relationships. Question four, what sin of the
tongue most readily exposes us to the wrath of God and to the
punishment of hell? Now, have you been thinking as
I've been asking the questions? If you've reflected upon these
questions and if answered in your mind, well, pastor, it must
be the sin of And I was almost tempted to say, everyone say
it in unison. And I think we'd have almost
complete unanimity. It is the sin of lying. It is the sin of dishonesty. The sin of misrepresenting or
shaving the truth in our speech. And if you were thinking in terms
of lying, dishonesty, misrepresenting or deliberately shaving the truth
with your words, you are right. For the answer to all four of
those questions is indeed the sin of lying. So as we begin
to examine the teaching of scripture concerning the specific sins
of the tongue, We will focus our attention this morning simply
upon, exclusively upon, the sin of lying. In the subsequent message,
or two at the most, I'm going to collect together a number
of other sins and not deal with them in such detail because the
Bible doesn't. But because of the emphasis of
the Word of God, there's going to be a disproportionate emphasis
upon lying because the Bible gives what we would call a disproportionate
emphasis upon the sin of lying. And to think our way through
the subject this morning, we have four simple questions. Question
number one, what does it mean to lie? What does it mean to
lie? What must a person do with his
tongue in order to be justly charged with the sin of lying? Well, the dictionary definition
is quite simple and uncomplicated. To lie is to deliberately make
a false statement. To lie is to deliberately make
a false statement. We could go further and say that
to lie is intentionally to deceive another person with our words. Or again, to lie is to speak
in such a way as to misrepresent the truth. Now we must think
clearly on this point. Not all false statements or misrepresentations
of the truth are lies. They may be simply mistakes.
But when they are deliberately made as false statements, when
one knowingly misrepresents the truth, that constitutes a lie. Let me illustrate. Someone goes
out and buys, why do we say a set? I don't know. I was thinking
of that when I was working on the illustration. Why do we say
a set of scales? It's a scale. And we get a bathroom
scale, alright? And so you've weighed yourself
on your bathroom scale. I'm assuming this is a man. And
so the scale says 175 pounds. So the next week after he's gotten
his bathroom scale, the reason he got it, he's going to have
a general check up with the doctor. He goes to the doctor and the
doctor asks him to write down on that form, it's your first
visit and you got to fill out all this stuff, all of that history.
And so, when he says height, weight, etc., you put your weight,
175 pounds, that's what your bathroom scale told you, alright?
Well, in the course of your thorough exam by the doctor, you get on
a real scale, you know, with the sliding things and all the
rest, and lo and behold, it's the bad news for you! It tells
you you're 185. Now, question. When you put down
175, were you lying? It wasn't a statement according
to truth. It wasn't a statement according to fact, but you weren't
lying. You were misrepresenting the
truth unwittingly. Right? You didn't know it. You
really thought you were 175 foot tall. 175? You weren't lying
when you put down 175. However, now you know you're
185. And the doctor says for your
height, and you're body built, you ought
to be real sure enough 175, not 185. And I'm going to put you
on a regimen of both diets and exercise and the rest, that in
the next three months, we get you down to 175 on my scale,
not yours. Okay? So, you're kind of cheating
on the doctor's directives. The time's coming up, one month
goes, oh, I got two months yet, two months goes, oh, I got another
month yet, I can crash dive, blah, blah, blah, blah. And lo
and behold, your scale still says 175. But you know it's 10
pounds under. Yet you're really still 185!
And you win, and the doctor's nurse says, how you doing with
your weight? What do you weigh now? Now if you put the exact
thing you did three months before, now you're lying. See the difference? You're putting exactly the same
numbers on the paper, but now it's a lie because you are deliberately,
knowingly misrepresenting the truth. Alright, you with me? So what is it to lie? To lie
is to deliberately make a false statement. To lie is intentionally
to deceive another person with my words. It is to deliberately,
knowingly misrepresent the truth. And that definition, or those
descriptions of what a lie is, fit precisely the first lie that
we encounter in our Bibles. Now you know where that first
lie is? It's in Genesis chapter 3. Let's see if the definition
of the dictionary and the definition illustrated in this rather homey
way fits. Genesis 3 verse 1, Now the serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God
had made. And he said to the woman, Yea,
as God said, You shall not eat of the tree of the garden. And
the woman said to the serpent, Of the fruit of the trees of
the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree that is
in the midst of the garden God has said, You shall not touch
it lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman,
You shall not surely die. That's the first introduction
of a lie. The serpent, the instrument of
the devil, that old deceiver as he is called in the book of
the Revelation, he knows that when God makes threats, God means
it. His own present condition was
the result of God being true to his character and to his word. And now he says to the woman,
you shall not surely die. Here was a deliberate misrepresentation
of the truth. Here was a deliberate making
of a false statement. Here was an intent to deceive
another person with his words. And when we pick up our Bibles
in the New Testament, we read in 1 Timothy 2, the woman was
utterly deceived. She embraced the lie as though
it were the truth. That's what a lie is. It is a
false statement made deliberately by the one who makes it. It is
a statement that has an intention to deceive another person with
words. It is a knowing misrepresentation
of the truth. Now, are we clear on what a lie
is? Alright, that's critical. And it's critical for a number
of reasons, not the least of which is you and I live in a
society that has a seared conscience about the moral nature of deliberately
misrepresenting the truth. In every realm of the fabric
of our society, we have an epidemic of lying. I recently heard a
survey that made national news. Now who was surveyed? I don't
know. I've been around North Jersey for 40 years and I hear
all these surveys. I never once had anybody call
me up and ask my opinion about anything. So I'm a little bit
suspicious at times about these surveys. But I'm giving you conservative
estimates that the average adult American says more than a dozen
lies a day. More than a dozen times throughout
the day, words are spoken that are deliberately false. Spoken intentionally to deceive
another person. Spoken consciously in misrepresentation
of the truth. And my Bible says, we are not
to be conformed to this age, but transformed by the renewing
of our minds, that we may prove what is the good acceptable and
the perfect will of God. And we must, as God's people,
and you who are not Christians, if you allow society to condition
your conscience, you'll slide into the hell made for liars. Believing a lie, that God doesn't
take lies seriously. And all the while, He does. So
we're going to work with that simple definition. Lying is any
deliberately made false statement, any attempt intentionally to
deceive another with our words. Now we come to question number
two. Having ascertained what does it mean to lie, question
number two, how does God look upon lying? In other words, what
is God's moral assessment of lying? And when we turn to our
Bibles, is there any consistent witness to the evil of lying? Or is it viewed as a kind of
human constitutional weakness with no real moral significance? People will sneeze when they
have allergies. People will have runny noses
when they have colds. People will lie when they're
interacting with others, when the lie will serve their purpose.
Do you get upset when people sneeze with allergies? Of course
not. Do you get upset when people cough and sniffle with their
colds? Well, only if they sniffle on you and pass their cold on.
But otherwise, you don't see any moral culpability in sniffles
with the cold. Are we to look upon lying as
sort of a moral cold that people have? And people will sneeze
and sniffle and people will lie. I mean, what's the big deal?
Well, let's find out what the big deal is. Does the Bible give
us any consistent testimony of how God looks upon lying? And what we're going to do is
make a brief survey from the Old through to the last book
of the New Testament in order to catch a flavor of the consistent
testimony of the Word of God with respect to how God looks
upon lying. White lies? Gray lies, polite
lies, blatant lies, lies of any kind, any shape, any color, any
deliberate misrepresentation of the truth is a lie. And we
want to know whether or not the Bible consistently states the
mind of God with respect to lying. So we take up the Bible that's
in your lap, In your hands, I hope you've got a Bible somewhere.
Don't come to this place without a Bible. All right? Hope you've
got a Bible. Well, it's conveniently put into
two major sections. Old Testament, New Testament.
All right? And in the Old Testament, the
way our English Bibles are put together, we have the first five
books, the books of Moses, God's legislation primarily for his
ancient people, Israel, with the preface of their history
how they came to be his nation from creation to the call of
Abraham and the patriarchs and then God's deliverance of them
out of Egypt and then making them his own people on into the
historical books and then into the books of poetry Job through
the song of Solomon and then into the prophets the minor and
the major prophets and we're going to just take a specimen
one or two texts out of each of these major sections in order
to ascertain, is there a consistent revelation of the disposition
of God towards lying? Well, let's look at the Mosaic
legislation. Leviticus chapter 19 and verse
11. Leviticus chapter 19 and verse
11. buried in the midst of these
sundry laws to the nation of Israel by which they were to
govern their religious, national, interpersonal life with each
other as God's covenant people. Look at Leviticus 19.11. You
shall not steal, neither shall you deal falsely, nor lie one
to another. You shall not take the property
of another. It's his property in the providence
of God. Embrace divine providence that
it's not yours. Don't take it. It's his. Don't
steal. Secondly, don't take advantage
of another by shady dealings. You shall not deal falsely. That is, don't seek advantage
with respect to your brother by shady dealings. If anything's
in the fine print, it ought to be in the bold print to make
the deal upright and honest, then make sure it's in the bold
print. And then thirdly, he says, you
shall not lie one to another. In all of your interpersonal
dealings within this covenant nation, I Jehovah am holy notice
the introduction in chapter 19 speak to all the congregation
of the children of Israel you shall be holy for I the Lord
your God am holy and woven into the very texture of God's nature
as a holy God he is the God of truth And he said, in my nation,
you are to reflect my character. You are not to lie one to another. You are never, under any circumstances,
to knowingly, deliberately misrepresent the truth in your dealings one
with another. Lying is nowhere to be found. among the covenant people of
God and then of course in the moral law recorded in Exodus
chapter 20 and again in Deuteronomy chapter 5 we have this clear
commandment the ninth commandment Exodus 20 and verse 16 You shall
not bear false witness against your neighbor. As Dumas renders
it, you shall not be a lying witness against your neighbor.
And in the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 5.20, a little bit
different vocabulary is used. You shall not be a false witness
against your neighbor. And as Douma points out in his
masterful treatment of the Ten Commandments, A Guide to Christian
Ethics, he points out that this has as its primary reference
the judicial system in Israel. Remember, it was a system with
no forensic science, no bugged phone lines, no DNA testing,
no fingerprints, and all of the other things. No judge and prosecuting
attorney and attorney for the defense and no jury. the elders
acted in the capacity of judge and jury and legislators of law
and if two people came before the elders in Israel and said
we saw this guy do in another guy and kill him you could be
killed on the basis of two witnesses agreeing about what you did you
remember that poor man In 1 Kings chapter 21, called Naboth, he
had a vineyard and that wicked man Ahab coveted his vineyard.
And his wife said, don't get too upset about it, we'll fix
this thing. So he went out and found a couple of dudes in the
street, a couple of the rabble, and said, look, say you heard
Naboth curse God and curse the king, and it'll be the end of
it. And sure enough, the false witnesses
came before him, and they said, yes sir, we heard him curse God
and curse the king. He was killed. So in a system
where living verbal witnesses were crucial, you can see why
God was protecting so much by saying, you shall not be a lying
witness against your neighbor. You shall not be a false witness
against your neighbor. The primary reference there has
to do with their dealings with one another within the very simple
elementary judicial system established among God's covenant people.
However, surely it has a much broader application with respect
to the sin of non-truth speaking in all of our dealings. For the
scripture makes it abundantly clear that our lies to one another
have great negative effects upon others. Abraham's lies left his
wife vulnerable to adultery and another man to capital offense. And when we read through the
scriptures we see that there's no such thing as a benign lie. And so the God who is concerned
with truth in this more limited context of the interpersonal
dealings of his people in a judicial setting is concerned for truth
in all of their dealings one with another. Joseph's brothers
by their lies caused a man to weep bucket of tears for years. He really believed that his son
was dead, and he mourned for years, carried the weight of
a broken heart, all of that because of the vicious lies that Joseph
was dead. So you see, God speaks with one
voice in the Mosaic legislation that lies are to have no part
among his people. Well, what about the poetic literature?
The Psalms and the Proverbs? The book of Job? Well, let's
look at three passages very quickly. Job chapter 27 and verse 4. Again and again you will find
Job protesting his integrity, when he's being slammed with
people's words that he must be a hypocrite, because no godly
man gets zapped by God the way he has been zapped. And now in
one of those sections where Job is protesting his integrity,
we read these words, Job 27 in verse 4, Surely my lips shall
not speak unrighteousness, neither shall my tongue utter deceit. And the words, my lips shall
not, could be rendered, my lips do not speak unrighteousness,
neither does my tongue utter deceit. As he is protesting the
validity of his integrity before God, he says, these lips do not
indulge in unrighteousness and deceit. They are lips of truth
that speak only the truth. And then when we turn to Psalm
120, the psalm of the righteous king, who lets us inside his
heart to see what his desire is before God. I'm sorry, in
this song of ascents, I was thinking of another passage I had thought
of using in which David speaks as the righteous king and his
determination to cut off all deceit within his kingdom. But
here is the picture of the pilgrim going up to Jerusalem And here
he is conscious that there are around him those that are unsympathetic
to his God. And notice how he describes them.
In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He answered me, Deliver
my soul, O Lord, from lying lips. and from a deceitful tongue. He says, O God, I am weary of
dwelling in the midst of a climate of lies and of deception, and
I long to be delivered from it. The clear indication being that
I am no part of that context in which lies and deception are
part and parcel of common experience. And then two verses in Proverbs.
Proverbs 12 and verse 22. Proverbs 12 and verse 22. Lying lips are an abomination
to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight. Lying lips are an abomination
to the Lord. You know what that word abomination
means? It's first occurrence in the Old Testament is found
in Leviticus 18, where God is describing the vile, sordid sins
of the nations of Canaan. The nations to be dispossessed
by Israel, and God's warning them, when you go in, don't learn
their ways, don't do what they do. And when He says, you shall
not lie with man as with woman, it is an abomination! And after he's dealt with homosexuality
and bestiality and every form of perversion, he said, these
things are an abomination to me. What does God think and feel
when he looks upon creatures leaving the natural use of heterosexual
intimacy and sees them in their vile perversion? What does God
feel? He says, it is an abomination
to me. He feels the same way when your
lips speak lies. You become so contrary to what
He is and what you were made for. God feels to you with lying
lips the same way He feels when a man consorts with a beast.
Say, Pastor, that's true! That's biblical! And you kids
need to start thinking like God does. It's an abomination! Lying lips
are an abomination unto God. But when he finds truthful lips,
those who deal truly, God smiles. He says they make me happy. Why? Because they're like me. I'm
the God of truth. And I speak truth. And when I
see creatures made in my image, reflecting my image, it makes
me happy. They're my delight. When you
speak the truth, even when it costs, even when it gets you
in trouble, even when it means off to the bedroom and your backside
whacked and grounded and privileges withdrawn, When a husband has
got to speak the truth to his wife, that he's been unfaithful,
that he's indulged in uncleanness, and he knows it'll break her
heart, God smiles when he has the moral courage to tell the
truth and stop living the lie by his silence, as though he's
never violated his marriage vows. Abomination and the delight,
your lips are one of the other to God. Proverbs 26, 28 which
is trying to get a feel for the Bible's witness concerning the
sin of lying. Proverbs 26 and verse 28 A lying tongue hates those whom
it has wounded. The marginal reading, those whom
it has crushed. And a flattering mouth works
ruin. A lying tongue hates those whom
it has crushed. I love you, Mommy. Your lies
are crushing her. Don't say you love her when you
lie to her. Love you, Dad! Not if you lie to dad. You crush
them. Serious stuff. Well, what happens
when we come to the prophets? Well, let's look at the witness
of two major prophets. Isaiah, chapter 59. The nation
is being judged by God or has been judged by God and Judah
has been sent into Babylon. God is, in these chapters, rich
with comfort, nonetheless reminding the nation why she is where she
is. Isaiah 59, 1, Behold, the Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is ear heavy
that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated between
you and your God. and your sins have hid his face
from you that he will not hear your hands are defiled with blood
and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies and
your tongue mutters wickedness look at the family of sins surrounding
a lying tongue hands defiled with blood fingers with iniquity
crookedness and perverseness And your lips have spoken lies. And in verse 13 of this very
chapter, transgressing and denying the Lord and turning away from
following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering
from the heart words of falsehood. As God is continuing the litany
of Israel's sins, He says, conceiving and uttering falsehood from the
heart. Is there any consistent disposition
of God to this, Sid? Turn to one more major prophet,
Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 4 and 5. Jeremiah 4 to 9, verses 4
and 5. Take heed every one of his neighbor.
Trust not in any brother. What a strange command from God.
Don't trust one another. Don't trust one another. Why?
Let me tell you why. For every brother will utterly
supplant and every neighbor will go about with slanders and they
will deceive everyone his neighbor and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue
to speak lies. They weary themselves to commit
iniquity. You see what God is saying? When
lying becomes a way of life in any society, the fabric of that
society that holds it together, mutual trust, my word is my bond,
when it's gone, that society has sunk into a tragic and horrible
state. And that's where we are as a
society. I long to hear someone on the
national scene say, look, here's the problem with our insurance
system. Here's the problem with the rising
tensions between labor and management. It's assumed dishonesty on both
parts. The insurance company assumes
fraud in the claims that are submitted, so to cover itself
and still make a profit, and cover the billions swallowed
up by fraud, its prices keep going up. And on the other hand,
because the person using the system assumes that as he's dishonest,
they're dishonest, and when they give us the reason they can't
give this coverage and that coverage, they're not telling the truth.
They're just trying to make themselves fatter cats at my expense. And
when the fabric of honesty is gone, it's gone, folks. We're living with it. We're living
with it. Trust not anyone his neighbor. Why? They have taught their tongues
to lie. They've instructed themselves
to be efficient, perpetual, ubiquitous liars. What about the minor prophets,
Hosea? What is the witness of Hosea?
Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, chapter 4 and verse 2. Listen to the
witness of this prophet. There is naught but swearing
and breaking faith. That's lying and killing and
stealing and committing adultery. They break out in blood touches
blood. Nothing but swearing, bringing
down curses upon one another. God damn you for this and God
damn you for that. It's common parlance now in primetime
family hour TV. lying, killing, and we call it
women's rights. I defend a woman's right. A woman's right to what? To her
body. To do what with her body? What's
sucked out in the sterile operating room isn't her body. It's the
body of an unborn baby. Lying, telling lies to themselves,
lies to one another. Not but swearing, bringing curses
down upon others. Lying, killing, stealing, committing
adultery. They break out in blood. Touch
his blood. Book of Micah. Hosea, Joel, Amos,
Jonah, Micah. Chapter 6, verse 12. Beginning
at verse 9, the voice of the Lord cries unto the city, and
the man of wisdom will see your name, hear the rod, and who has
appointed it. God is speaking, God is dealing
with his people, for the rich men thereof are full of violence,
and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue
is deceitful in their mouth. Todd looks down and says, I can't
find mouths in which tongues speak truth. Lying tongues are
the order of the day. Well, what happens when we come
to the New Testament? Is this witness consistent with
the old? Well, again, I give you just a brief survey. How
do we divide up our New Testament? Gospel, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation,
right? And I'm doing this again for
the sake of some new converts, just to give them a feel for
how their Bibles are put together. What does our Lord say in the
Magna Carta, in the manifesto of the kingdom that he's come
to establish in the hearts of men? He says in that marvelous
manifesto that we call the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verses
33 to 37. He says you shouldn't have to
go around saying, I swear to God and hope to die, and then
speak something. We find that all the time. People
having to take the form of an oath to be believed. The Lord
said, no, no, not in my kingdom. Don't go around having to swear
by this, swear by this. Why? Let your yes be a yes. When you say yes, mean yes, and
yes is yes. When you say no, I'll let you
know if you know. In other words, he says, in my kingdom, you speak
the truth. You do not intentionally shade
the truth. You do not speak with crossed
fingers behind your back when I say yes, but I have my fingers
crossed. I don't say yes with mental reservations,
the doctrine of the Jesuits. No, no. When you say a yes, and
you know that people will interpret your yes as a clear, unequivocal
affirmation, he said, now you give me a yes, and you mean yes.
Not yes, plus, yes, minus. Yes, yes. When you say no, no
is no. Not no, but. Not no, none. No is no, yes is yes. That's
the way you're to function in my kingdom. You're to speak the
truth. I abominate lies. My kingdom is the kingdom of
righteousness and light. I have come to establish a kingdom
in which the subjects of my kingdom will reflect the character of
my Heavenly Father. He shall be perfect as your Heavenly
Father is perfect. He is perfect in truth. And we
are to reflect truth in our speech. And then it's interesting when
you come to the book of Acts. What's the first case of church
discipline in the book of Acts? Remember what it is? What's the
first case of church discipline? Chapter 5. And God himself is
the disciplinarian. Not Peter. Not the other apostles. God himself disciplines two people
in that flourishing church in Jerusalem. And what are they
disciplined for? Remember Acts chapter 5? And Annias and Sapphira? They
lie. And we read in Acts chapter 5
and verse 4, Peter says, while it remained your own, wasn't
it in your power? How is it that you've conceived
this thing in your heart? You've not lied unto men, but
unto God. And Ananias, hearing these things,
fell down, and gave up his spirit in great fear, and came upon
all that heard it. And the young men arose, and
wrapped him round, and carried him out, and buried him. And
three hours later they carried out his wife." Why? Because they
lied. You ever ask yourself, why did
God put such an emphasis upon this matter so early in the history
of the church? that he killed two professing
Christians that deliberately misrepresented the truth with
regard to a few shekels. Peter says, hey, you sold the
land for this? Oh, yeah. And we're bringing
all that? Well, yeah. Hey, we're just exaggerating
a little bit to look a little more spiritual. We sold it for
10,000 bucks. When in reality, they sold it
for 15,000. They kept back 5,000. Peter says, how much did you
sell it for? Oh, 10,000. How much you bring
in? 10,000. Wouldn't you think the Lord might
have said, now look, I understand. You want to appear a little more
spiritual? It's very commendatory that you were given two-thirds
of it in the first place, and I don't want to deal with you
too harshly. Give him a little tap on the back. No, no. God
put his hand right on their ticker. He squeezed it once and said,
you've had it, Ananias, you've had it, Sapphira, take them out
and bury them. My ecclesia, my called out assembly
will be a people that reflect my character as the God of truth. Lies will not be tolerated in
my special presence. I want to ask you, if God killed
this morning every child in this place, that told a deliberate
lie this week. How many funerals would I be
attending this week? How many funerals? And the fact that God doesn't
kill liars like he did then doesn't mean that his heart is any less
disposed in holy abomination against lying lips. He's long-suffering
and he's patient. He's made his statement clearly
in Acts chapter 5. But don't mistake his long-suffering
for a relaxing of his holy anger against lying lips and the one
who possesses them. And when we come into the epistles,
Colossians 3 and verse 9, Colossians 3 and verse 9, Do not lie one to another, seeing
you have put off the old man with his doings and have put
on the new man that is being renewed unto knowledge after
the image of him that created him. He says to the Colossian
Christians, do not under any circumstances lie to one another. Do not under any circumstances
misrepresent the truth one to another. Why? Because untruth
and lying were part of what you were when you were in Adam. You
were old man. You were under the dominion of
sin. You are now in Christ. You are new man. You are united
to Christ, indwelt by the Spirit. You're in the new age, the new
age in which truth and righteousness reign. parallel passage Ephesians
4 25 very similar language and then we come to Titus chapter
1 there was an epidemic spin in the isle of Crete and what
was it verse 12 of Titus 1 one of themselves a prophet of their
own said Cretans are always liars evil beasts Idle gluttons. This testimony is true. I'm not quite sure who this particular
person in history was, and it's debated, but someone in the pagan
world had identified one of the crowning sins of the Cretans
as being liars. And apparently, those who are
being called out of such a society still had some of the barnacles
on their hoes. And he said, this testimony is
true. Cretans are known to be liars. For which cause? Reprove
them sharply that they may be sound or healthy in the faith.
If someone is still given to lying, he's sick, morally sick. He's not healthy in the faith
that is in Jesus. And therefore lying is to have
no part in a healthy assembly of God's people. Then the final
testimony of the New Testament is Revelation 21 in verse 8.
Revelation 21 in verse 8. And here we read these sobering
words, Revelation 21 and verse 8. after describing the glory and
the beauty of the new heavens and the new earth and the redeemed
that are in it and all of their privileges but but for the fearful
and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and fornicators
and sorcerers and idolaters what a company unbelieving, abominable,
murderers, sexually unclean, sorcerers, idolaters, but look,
and all liars, and all liars, and all liars, liars born in
Christian homes, liars reared in Christian homes, Liars homeschooled
in a Christian context. Liars schooled in Trinity Christian
school. All liars, every one of them,
without exception, young or old, privileged or underprivileged,
all liars, their parts shall be in the lake that burns with
fire and brimstone. That's God's crowning witness
to what we've seen from the vivicus clean through our Bibles concerning
God's clear, simple, unified disposition to the sin of lying. We've answered the question,
what is it to lie? We've answered the question,
what is God's disposition? towards lying. Is there a unified
biblical witness of how God reacts to lying? The answer is clear. And then we come to the third
question. And that is this. What is God's attitude and action
towards the liar and his lying lips? We've seen his disposition. But what is his abiding attitude
and action to the liar and to his lying lips? And I want you
to consider just four or five texts very quickly. Psalm 5,
verses 4 to 6. Let the Bible answer these questions. Psalm 5, verse 4. You are not a God that has pleasure
in wickedness. Evil or the evil man shall not
sojourn with you. The arrogant shall not stand
in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. You will destroy them that speak
lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty
and deceitful man. God will deal with you as a liar
the same way he would deal with a murderer. He abhors both of
you and he will destroy you and he'll destroy you in that place
that was described in Revelation 21 in verse 8 Psalm 52 verses
1 to 5 Psalm 52 verses 1 to 5 What is God's attitude in action toward
the liar and his lying lips? Why do you boast yourself in
mischief, O mighty men? The loving kindness of God endures
continually. Your tongue devises wickedness
like a sharp razor working deceitfully. You love evil more than good
and lying more than to speak righteousness. You love all devouring
words, O deceitful tongue. God will likewise destroy you
forever. He will take you up and pluck
you out of the tent and root you out of the land of the living.
That is R-rated violent language, my friend. And your lies and
your lying lips provoke God to be violent towards you. Because
you are denying all that you are to be as His image, as the
God of truth. We read the Proverbs 6 passage,
we just look at it briefly. Proverbs 6.16, there are six
things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue. Verse 19, a false witness. The marginal reading that breathes
out lies. Some of you sitting here, you
have learned to lie so well and so naturally, it's no more an
effort than breathing. You've been breathing all the
while you've been here this morning. I haven't seen anyone sitting
there with a look of struggle on your face. If you were, we
know you were having a heart attack or some serious physical
problem. We've been sitting here breathing
effortlessly. And there are children, and young men, and perhaps some
teenagers, you've become so adept at lying, it's as easy for you
as breathing. You can breathe out your lies. God hates your lies, and the
lips, and the person who has the lips of the liar. That's serious stuff, kids. Before
you go home today and lie, you better think for a minute. I
lie, I provoke the hatred of God. I want to contend with God? Then let me go on being a liar.
Proverbs 12, 22, we already looked at. Proverbs 19 in verse 5. The final text under this heading.
A false witness shall not be unpunished. And he that utters
lies shall not escape. Oh yes, you've escaped mom, you've
escaped dad, you've conned them well. You've escaped the teacher. Nobody knows. Aha, nobody knows. When did God become absent-minded
and connable? He knows. Every idle word you speak, you'll
give an account. One of those idle words are lying
words. And God knows them, every one
of them. You think you fooled mom, you
fooled dad, you fooled your kids, you fooled everybody. Almighty
God says you will not be unpunished, and he that others lies will
not escape. God's attitude is one of active
passionate hatred toward lying lips and the person who possesses
them. God says you as a liar are an
abomination unto him. Now some of you are going to
be very offended. Oh, you tell the children God hates them.
Yes, my Bible says it. You got a problem with the Bible?
Go tell God to rewrite it, my friend. Tell God to rewrite it. In your mushy sentimentality,
tell God you don't like the way he wrote his Bible. Until then,
don't accuse me of speaking untruth. My task is to speak the truth,
and I've quoted sufficient verses to convince a pagan jury that
doesn't believe the Bible, that the Bible teaches God's attitude
to liars is one of righteous, positive hatred and abomination. Settle it. as an indisputable
reality that a liar with his lying lips will be dealt with
by a holy and a righteous God. So we come in closing then, question
number four, what's God's remedy for the sin of lying? What's
God's remedy? I can't stop where I've stopped. I'm sorry, as far as I've come.
What's God's remedy for the sin of lying? Well, there are two
categories of liars, and God's remedy for both is different.
The one category of liar is the person that I'm describing in
which you are held in the grip of a reigning sin of lying. In other words, lying has become
a way of life to you. It's not that you are occasionally
tempted to lie. and you succumb to the temptation
of lying, but lying is a reigning sin in your life. You are not
one who occasionally tells a lie, but you are a liar. In other
words, when God says all liars have their part in the lake of
fire, He is not speaking of the true earnest believer. who because
of remaining sin and by peculiar problems and situations in his
life may be particularly prone to lying as a besetting sin. No, no, he's not a liar who will
be cast into the lake of fire. A liar is someone in whom the
lie is a reigning principle. Dishonesty with your lips is
a pattern of your life. What's God's remedy for you?
Well, it's this. Face the fact that your pattern
of lying is conclusive evidence that you're an unregenerate sinner
on your way to hell. Face the fact that your pattern
of lying is conclusive evidence that you're a stranger to the
grace of God and on your way to hell. Jesus said to the Jews,
the Pharisees of his day in John 8 44, you are of your father
the devil and the lust or desires of your father you will do. He
was a murderer from the beginning and a liar and he abode not in
the truth. You are never more like the devil
than when you lie. And you prove your spiritual
parentage when lying is a way of life to you. Don't you tell
me or anyone else, oh I'm a Christian, I'm trusting Jesus. I must be
a Christian. No. If lying is the pattern of
your life, you're unconverted. You are of your father the devil.
Face that reality. And then repent of your sin of
lying and cast yourself upon a gracious Savior who promises
to pardon all of your sins, including your dozens and hundreds of lies. Repent, Jesus said, and believe
in the gospel. Paul said he preached repentance
toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the
God of truth and say, O God of truth, I've been so unlike you.
I've been a liar and a deceiver, and I'm helpless to change my
lying heart. and my deceiving lips. But, O
God, I desire to be delivered, and I desire to be taken out
of this pattern of being a liar. And, Lord Jesus, you said, Come
to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Your apostle said that in your name there is forgiveness
from all things from which we could not be justified by the
law of Moses. Lord Jesus, forgive me, cleanse
me, purge me of my lies. Then cry to God to give you a
fundamental change of heart, for remember Jesus' words. Out
of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man
out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.
The evil man out of his evil treasure. You need an honest
heart. That's why God says in Psalm
15.3, the one who has access into his presence is the one
who speaks truth in his heart. You're never going to have truth-speaking
lips until you have a truth-framed heart. And God says, I will take
out the heart of stone. I will give you a heart of flesh.
I'll write my law upon it. I'll give you my spirit. I'll
give you a disposition that wants to be truthful. Think of it,
kids. Some of you for whom lies have
been a way of life. God can change all of that and
make you love the truth and speak the truth. Face your true state. Repent and flee to Christ. Cry to God to give you a change
of heart. Well, what's the remedy for those
of you for whom lying is not a way of life, but you struggle
with it? Perhaps it was a way of life
before you became a Christian. What do you do? What's the remedy
for your remaining sin of lying? Number one, face honestly the
roots of your lying. face honestly the roots of your
lie. Why do we lie? We lie almost
invariably for self-protection, self-promotion, or a desire to
take advantage of another or hurt another. You think about
that. You get caught in a situation
where if you tell the truth, the consequences may not be pleasant.
So out of self-protection, you lie. Dad and mom give you curfew.
Want you in by 11 o'clock. You stagger in 11.15. You know
the consequence. You don't keep the curfew, you
get grounded for a month. So to protect your liberty, to
take the car and go out with your buddies, they say, how come
you home at 10.15? Oh, hit unusual traffic. Got
a flat tire. You lie to protect yourself.
You see, you gotta deal with the roots of self-protection
that produces the lies. Or you lie for self-promotion. You do with your lies what you
can't do with your performance. You try to project yourself to
be something you're not. And you use your lie to promote
yourself or protect yourself! And you see, the root of that
is a problem with what it is to be a true disciple who denies
himself. Not protects himself and promotes
himself. but denies himself, takes up
his cross to follow Christ. Or you tell lies to take advantage
of another. Somebody has something you want
and the only way you can get it is to lie. Or somebody is
or has something you don't want and in your envy you want to
hurt them and you hurt them with a lie. Deal, Christian, with
the roots of your lying. And the fruits will dry up if
you deal with the roots. Love of self And the lack of
love to others are the two main tap roots of the besetting sin
of lying in the life of a believer. And then secondly, you must lay
hold of the promised grace to overcome lying. Lay hold of the
blessed reality that I'm united with Christ and in union with
Him. I died to the reign of sin. I've been risen to newness of
life. And on that basis, I will reckon myself dead to sin and
alive unto God in union with Christ. And I'll present my members,
including my tongue, as an instrument of righteousness. And I will
say, O God, I'd rather die than use this tongue to speak a lie,
and if speaking the truth means I must die, I'd just chased up
to heaven earlier than I thought I'd go there. That's the justification
of martyrdom. Better to speak the truth than
to spend a few more days on earth. Christian, why do you lie? You
want to protect yourself. You don't dare tell your wife
that thing you know you've got to tell her. Go home today and tell her. Say,
honey, I've been protecting myself, but I have no right to keep this
from you. I can't keep it from you. I must be honest with you.
And bear your heart to her. You kids, you've got some secrets. It's been covered over. Remember,
he that covers his sins shall not prosper. That's why you can't
go into new levels of intimacy with your parents. That thing's
a wall there, and you know it. You know it! You can't get over
it because every time you draw near for greater intimacy, you
know if we're going to come to that new level, you got to come
clean. Oh, kid, stop, stop, stop tolerating
the wall. Come clean. Oh, yeah, maybe a
little smart, little present discipline. What's the big deal?
Don't you want to be having a close, open face, utterly transparent
relationship with your mom and dad? I speak as a parent who
knows. Nothing, nothing is more destructive
of a meaningful parent-child relationship than dishonesty. Nothing, nothing. Where words
no longer mean anything, because you don't know if they're conveying
reality. Don't break your parents' heart.
One broken heart around here is enough. Don't break your parents' heart
by lying. Come clean with the truth. Take
the consequences. They'll wrap their arms around
you with tears of joy that you've come clean. If you're dealing with the besetting
sin of lying, face its roots. Go to Christ for forgiveness
and cleansing, and the grace to overcome it, and then make
the restitution. You've got to. Some of you are
sitting here, and you've got a warfare going on in your soul. There are issues that have come
before your mind, and you're saying, but I can't! You've got
to. You must. May God grant that before the
day is over, Whole new dimensions of genuine family intimacy will
break in upon families in this place because the lies are driven
out. And the light of truth has come
in to our interpersonal relationships. You want to make this old preacher
happy? You come at the end of the day and take me aside and
say, Pastor, I'm one of those families. Truth is answered. The lies have been driven out.
And then by the grace of God, keep them out. Well, we come
around full circle to where we began. What is the sin addressed more
than any other? The sin of the tongue in the
Bible. I believe it is the sin of lying. May God grant that
that sin will be driven far from our ranks today by the power
of the Spirit through the Word. Let's pray. Our Father, we hate the lie. We hate it when we see it entering
the beautiful Edenic paradise that you had made. And by the
lie, the devil floats his agenda. and all the suffering and all
the agony and all the rape and all of the bloodshed and all
of the brutality and the sickness and every grave and every deathbed
is a reminder that he's a liar. Oh Lord, help us to hate the
lie. Help us to love him who said,
I am the truth. And we beg of you today You would
have dealings with all of our hearts, especially, Lord, do
we pray, for those who are under the dominion of the sin of lying,
that you will give them no rest until they know the truth of
Jesus, who said, Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. God, don't let your word fall
to the ground, but may it bear abundant fruit for our good and
for your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.