Damaging The Truth - That Ain't Right Series

Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive." (Exodus 1:16-19)

Now, were the mid-wives honest? No… they lied!

These women were speaking to the Hitler of their day, the Stalin of their era. He was a thug intent upon murdering all the boy children in Israel. Had they told him the truth there is no telling what evil he would have devised…

BUT THEY LIED!

Yes, they lied

(pause…) And what did God think of their action?

Exodus 1:20-21 “So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.”

He rewarded them! WHY? Because, what they did, they did for God. They didn’t lie because they feared for their own lives. They lied because they “feared God.”

My point is simply that: The only time we shouldn’t be telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth… is when that truth damages and destroys the people around us.

ILLUS: I once knew a man who “honest” with his wife.

He told her what a bad housekeeper she was

He told her what a rotten mother she was

He told her how unattractive she was

He emotionally brow beat her until she began to tell falsehoods to protect herself from his constant accusations.

THEN when he caught her telling those lies… he told her that she was a liar.

Now what he told her always had a measure of truth to it.

· She probably wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world

· She probably wasn’t the perfect mother

· She may not have won any beauty contests

· AND she did lie to avoid his emotional abuse

This husband spoke “truth” to his wife.

But it wasn’t a “wholesome” truth

It was NOT a truth he used to “edify” her

It was truth intended to drag her down and destroy her.

Paul tells us: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Eph. 4:29)

And: We should always “Be kind and compassionate to one another... Ephesians 4:32

II. Why do people ordinarily lie?

They don’t usually lie to protect OTHERS feelings or lives. Most people lie to protect themselves. They lie to cover their sins or hide their failures.

ILLUS: Most are like the child whose mother walks into the living room and sees a glass of spilled milk. The mother looks at her child and says “Did you do this?”

To which the child replies: “Not me! I didn’t do it”

Now, the mother knows there’s been no one else in the living room but that child… and the child knows she knows. But that little boy or girl tells the lie hoping to escape punishment.

The problem with lying to cover our sinfulness and our shortcomings is that even though we hurt others by doing so, one of the main people we end up hurting and deceiving is ourselves.

ILLUS: Remember Watergate scandal that bro’t down President Nixon’s presidency? One of Nixon’s former Aides - Jeb Stuart Magruder recalled: