THE TRUTH ABOUT LYING
INTRODUCTION: Jim Carrey movie, “Liar, Liar”. “Jim Carrey plays Fletcher Reede, a career-focused lawyer and divorced father. Fletcher loves to spend time with his son Max, but he has a habit of giving precedence to his job, breaking promises to Max and his ex-wife Audrey and then lying about the reasons. Fletcher's compulsive lying has also built him a reputation as one of the best defense lawyers in the state of California as he is climbing the ladder in the firm for which he works. Ultimately, Fletcher misses his son's fifth birthday party. Max makes a birthday wish that his father would be unable to tell a lie for an entire day—a wish that immediately becomes true. Fletcher soon discovers, through a series of embarrassing incidents that he is unable to lie, mislead, or even withhold a true answer.” Although the movie is a comedy, the issue of lying is anything but funny. Max’s birthday wish was for his father to stop lying. God has that same desire for us. He understands how serious of an issue lying is and how important it is for his followers to overcome it. Let’s take a look at this subject and what we can do about it.
1) Why do we lie?
• It’s natural. The “Liar, Liar” movie received good reviews. I’m sure one of the reasons for that is because on some level we can all relate. We can relate to being a liar as well as being lied to. For some people, they view lying as a survival instinct. They feel they can’t get by in life without telling a lie every now and then. A poll of 25,000 high schoolers found that nearly half agreed with the statement, “A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed.” It’s just a part of life. Lying is part of our old nature. And our old nature is directed by Satan and Satan is the father of lies John 8:44b, “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is not truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” It’s natural for Satan to lie and apart from Christ it’s natural for us to lie too.
• To protect ourselves. We lie to avoid getting into trouble. We tell someone what they want to hear so we don’t have them upset at us. We don’t want to hurt their feelings. Really it’s that we don’t want to be uncomfortable knowing we’ve hurt their feelings. So we lie to avoid a confrontation. We lie to get ourselves off the hook. We conclude it’s just easier on ourselves if we lie about it. I just want to get way from this uncomfortable situation. We tell lies to protect ourselves.
• Selfish gain. When there’s something to be gained we will be apt to lie. We make the compromise because of our materialistic desires. However, we are not gaining at all. Instead, we are losing. Prov. 21:6, “A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.” No matter how much money I’m making due to dishonesty and deceit it will last only a moment. And in the wake of that dishonesty is mounds of trouble. I think of people who cheat the system; people who lie on their taxes or work under the table. People who are fraudulent or embezzle and cover it up. Then they get caught and have to pay it all back along with fines and jail time. In the end telling lies profit nothing. Prov. 19:22b, “better to be poor than a liar.”
2) How do we lie? There are different ways to lie than just out and out lying.
• Deception. Psalm 5:9, “Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit.” We deceive when we are misleading someone. Joe the Butcher had crafty ways of selling his chickens. Once he had only one chicken left in his shop and he didn’t want to keep it over the weekend. The priest of his church came into the store. He said, "My wife sent me to buy a good size chicken to roast for dinner. We’re having my boys come back home from college." Joe said, "I have just what you need." He went to the freezer and brought out the last chicken and put it on the scale. He said, "This one is 2 pounds 3 ounces." The priest said, "That’s sort of small. Do you have anything else?" Joe took the chicken back into the freezer and came back with the same chicken; it was the only one he had. He put it on the scale and this time said, "This one is 3 pounds and five ounces. But since you’re a man of God, I’m going to let you have it for the same price." The priest said, "Well, thank you, but come to think of it, the way my boys eat, just go ahead and give me both of the chickens." Joe had been caught. Deception is lying and lying gets us nowhere.
• Dishonesty. We’re dishonest when we purposely leave out information. Selling a used car-it has no rust, low miles spotless interior. This may be true but you purposely left out the fact that it has an oil leak and it’s been in an accident before. Telling half-truths. The parent asks his teen daughter, “Where are you going?” “Over to Sarah’s.” While this is true, the teen doesn’t say they’re going from Sarah’s to a party at Steve’s. Sometimes we’re dishonest by stretching the truth or exaggerating. Some of your statement is truth but it’s mixed in with lies. We’re told in a courtroom to tell then truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Dishonesty is lying.
• Flattery. We think we’re doing someone a favor by telling them they look good when they don’t or that they’re doing a great job when they haven’t. Not that we should be condescending or tactless but giving flattery isn’t a good thing. We usually only give it when we’re trying to get something from someone anyway. Prov. 26:28, “A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin.” Edmund Burke said, “Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.” Giving flattery is telling lies.
3) What is the damage caused by lying?
• The snowball effect. When you tell one lie, often times you have to end up telling more lies to try to keep your previous lies from being exposed. On and on it goes until you’re all frazzled because you can’t keep your lies straight. “When you tell the truth you don’t have to have a good memory.” The condition of lie-telling itself has a snowball effect as well. Once you start on your path of lies you end up telling lies more frequently and eventually you’re a pathological liar. Have you ever known someone who has lied about things for no good reason? They went out of their way to tell you a lie when there was no reason to do so. This is probably someone who has become a habitual liar. It has become so normal for them to lie that it’s part of their natural speech. It’s almost like they can’t stop. They can even get to the point to where they believe their own lies. And the result from this snowball effect is that when you are a known liar you create for yourself a reputation of distrust. One of the problems with this is that when you are telling the truth people won’t believe you because of all the times you’ve been caught in a lie. “The boy who cried wolf.”
• It adds to the problem. Chances are I’m lying to cover up something bad I’ve done. And when what I’ve done is found out, the consequences will be magnified because I’ve told lies on top of it. Prov. 19:5, “a false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.” A person’s lies will catch up to him. “Tell the truth it becomes part of your past; tell a lie it becomes part of your future.” In the publication, Christian Reader, Clara Null wrote a short titled, Flat-out Lying. “On a beautiful fall day, four of my granddaughter's friends decided to go for a drive instead of showing up to class on time. When they did arrive, the girls explained to the teacher they had had a flat tire. The teacher accepted the excuse, much to the girls' relief. "Since you missed this morning's quiz, you must take it now," she said. "Please sit in the four corner seats in this room without talking." When they were seated, the teacher said, "On your paper write the answer to one question: 'Which tire was flat?'"
• Others are affected. If I steal from you I can pay you back. If I lie about you whether it’s giving false testimony or gossiping or slander, I can’t just take that back. Damage, quite possibly permanent damage has been done. If someone accuses another of a crime where there is none their lies might find them out but the false accusations have already caused their harm and can very well ruin the reputation of a person who has done nothing wrong. God takes this very seriously. Deut. 19:15-21. When we involve someone else in our lies there is serious, sometimes irreversible damage done.
4) How do we overcome lying?
• Understand the consequences. Acts 5:1-11. Ananias and Sapphira lied and God dealt harshly with that. Peter said, ‘You have not lied to men but to God’. When we lie, yes, in essence we are lying to each other but ultimately our lie is to God. Vs. 3-your lie will find you out. It doesn’t say exactly how Peter came to know that Ananias was lying but he found out nonetheless. When we think we are pulling the wool over people’s eyes the wool is actually covering our own. “How is it that Satan has so filled your heart?” When we are willing to lie we need to realize what has happened to us spiritually. Being a liar is being someone who has allowed Satan into their heart to effect him in such a way as to go around telling bold-faced lies. It makes sense for Peter to say this because Satan is the father of lies. Therefore, he is behind all lies. This may seem like a pretty severe consequence for telling a lie but God knew that lying is a restless evil that festers and grows until it destroys. God needed his people to take lying seriously and he was willing to show how serious he was about it.
• Hate it. Prov. 13:5, “The righteous hate what is false, but the wicked bring shame and disgrace. “False” is used in a collective sense. We see in the Amplified version specifics are used, “A [consistently] righteous man hates lying and deceit, but a wicked man is loathsome [his very breath spreads pollution] and he comes [surely] to shame.” The question is do we see lying as loathsome (disgusting)? Do we see it as pollution? We might when it’s done to us but we typically sugar-coat it when we’re the ones doing it. We can’t do that if we’re going to stop telling lies. We need to have God’s attitude toward lying. Prov. 12:22, “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.” God hates all forms of lying. He hates little white lies, he hates half-truths, he hates deceptions; the whole thing. If we are too comfortable with lying or if we are quick to justify and rationalize our lies then we’re not seeing them in the light that God does. If we are going to call them “little white lies” or “fibs” then we aren’t taking the sin of lying as seriously as we need to. If we are going to overcome the sin of lying we need to hate it like God hates it.
• Practice honesty. We have to believe and act according to honesty really being the best policy; even if that means losing something. “If I tell the truth here I might lose [fill in the blank]”. Golfer Chelsee Richard, of Bloomingdale High School in Brandon, Florida, lost her chance to win the 2004 state championship—by being honest. In the qualifier for the state finals, Chelsee hit her tee shot on the second hole into the rough. Without knowing it, she played another golfer’s ball out of the rough and finished the hole. On the third hole, she realized what she had done. The rule is that a golfer must declare the wrong ball penalty before putting on the hole where the infraction occurred, or be disqualified. Chelsee reported her error, resulting in a painful ending to her senior season and her dream of going to state. She later said: “With my faith and with God, being honest was the most important thing to me, and that’s what is going to advance on throughout my life, being honest and making the right choices.” Prov. 16:13, “Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value a man who speaks the truth.” If we are going to stop lying we need to practice honesty.
