Believe Me - Honestly

Believe Me -- Honestly

Exodus 20:16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

What is lying? "False witness" suggests that someone is lying about something. The truth is known, however, the truth is not being told -- for some reason.

Why do we lie? Why does a child lie? Why does anyone lie? It is more difficult to lie than to tell the facts -- a person has to make up events with all their details. And then that fiction must be remembered.

Exodus 23:1-3 "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness.

"Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.

Deuteronomy 19:16-21 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, 17 the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, 19 then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. 20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

A liar wants something that he does not deserve. With children, they usually don’t want the consequences of their behavior. Are adults different? And if the little lie works, the next one will be even bigger. And if I lie as a witness, I might get something to my advantage?

Proverbs 6:16-19

16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,

19 a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

Proverbs 12:17 A truthful witness gives honest testimony, but a false witness tells lies.

Proverbs 13:5 The righteous hate what is false , but the wicked bring shame and disgrace.

Proverbs 14:5 A truthful witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies.

Proverbs 14:25 A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful.

Proverbs 17:4 A wicked man listens to evil lips; a liar pays attention to a malicious tongue.

Proverbs 19:5 A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.

Proverbs 19:9 A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish.

Proverbs 19:22 What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar .

Proverbs 21:28 A false witness will perish, and whoever listens to him will be destroyed forever.

Proverbs 25:18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow is the man who gives false testimony against his neighbor.

Proverbs 30:5-6 "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar .

THERE WAS THAT FIRST LIE

Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"

4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

What is the lie? Was is "you will not surely die"? Or was it "you will be like God"?

Genesis 3:13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"

The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

As if the consumption of a fruit, something created, will make you a god. One could say this was the first attempt at a works kind of religion. The created is doing something with the created in an attempt to be equal to or greater than the Creator. A lie. And Paul explains it in Romans.

Romans 1:18-25 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen.

Exchanging the truth of God for a lie. Which lie? The one the serpent presented to Eve. The lie that if you consume this created thing, you will be like the Creator. Then you don’t need a god.

Atheists -- besides being fools by the scriptural definition of a "fool" -- BELIEVE there is no god. This is a belief which is as unprovable as any other religion. As such, it qualifies as a religion. When the argument is made that "under god" might be offensive to atheists, it is a clear statement by the atheist that they don’t understand or comprehend their own belief system. "Under god" should mean to them "under me" because their own belief puts themselves as the ultimate higher authority. Isn’t that what Eve was deceived with? Thousands of trees to eat from; she chose the one that made her a god.

LANGUAGE OF THE DEVIL

John 8:42-47 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? 47 He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God."

An amazing human capability is language. We get excited when our children say their first words. And what are those words? I have never heard of anyone having a child whose first words were in a language different from what his parents spoke. We learn language from our parents and from those around us. If our parents speak several languages, so will we. Then we start learning language from our friends and from the people we are around.

How do we learn language? Many have studied this. And there are many systems to learn languages that you are not native to. And to some extent, people can come fairly competent in other languages, but it is still not as complete as what we learned as a child. How did the child learn? Word-by-word. Situation-by-situation. Affirmation - by affirmation. When the sound works -- communication is effective -- it encourages the speaker to use the term again. That is one reason cursing is used: reaction of the hearer.

How do we learn the language of the devil? His "native language"? Maybe we start with just a few words. Maybe it is the "white lie." Maybe it is the exaggeration for effect. (Lloyd used to like to remind me of that.) Maybe it is "evangelistically" speaking. When we lie, we are speaking the native language of the devil. Are we part of his nationality?

Each of us remembers the affect of the lie we discovered personally: the feeling of betrayal. Do you remember when your child first lied? All of a sudden, nothing said mattered anymore because the truth was not there. If a person has lied once, there really is no reason to ever believe them again without corroborating evidence. Trust is lost. Lying is betrayal. It is the language of Satan.

Lying is one of the big problems in marriage and it is not the big lie, but the little one. Consider the example:

Something has irritated the SHE during the day. The HE is gone all day. HE comes home and sees immediately that something is wrong by the look on her face. HE says, "What’s wrong, honey." SHE tartly responds, "NOTHING." HE is, of course, clueless -- normal. If HE pursues the conversation trying to calm SHE down because something is obviously wrong, HE is in for it. If HE takes her at her word and goes about acting like everything is fine like she said, he is in for it and will be in even greater trouble. SHE will stew and HE will have not idea what is going on. What would happen if she did not choose to use the language of Satan?

But this works both ways. If SHE is not providing HE with enough Appreciation, Approval, and Affection, HE will have male-moods that HE will lie about just as much.

Marriage requires transparency in communication. If this is not done, the language of Satan is resorted to. The couples start lying to each other making the couples vulnerable to the bigger lies and betrayal. It is interesting that one of the major themes and techniques used in marriage counseling is to get couples to be honest with each other. Couples seem to break this commandment before others are broken.

"My wife says I don’t listen to her -- or something like that." But that is not lying.

Remember the great Bill Clinton national broadcast with him pointing his finger at the camera, "I never had sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky!"? Whose language was he using?

"How do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving."

Maybe that isn’t a joke. How do you know when a Christian is lying? Ask him how he is feeling today.

"How are you?"

"Fine. How are you?"

I think "fine" actually means: "I really don’t want to talk about anything. Do we have some meaningless small talk that could fill this time and space?"

I encountered a man at the store who kind of knows me and I kind of know him more by his family than anything else and he knew my parents. I do know that he, though raised Pentecostal, had apparently rejected everything of faith. The conversation was the polite him asking me how I am donig. My response was something like, "I am doing okay, how about you." [A truth without revealing too much.] His response: "While, I am doing absolutely great." There was something intensely disingenuous about the statement. It was almost as if he said, "Unlike you, because I have rejected that crummy religion you still practice, I am just great -- so there." How do I know that? The Spirit revealed to me his language.

GIFT OF TONGUES

We live in a kingdom controlled by Satan. The language of the satan is dominant in this world and his native language is the lie. Truth is far from him. But we do not need to speak that language. Jesus said something interesting about truth.

John 8:31-32 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth , and the truth will set you free ."

There have been lots of great sermons about this. But let’s look at another point. One of the 12 Gifts of the Spirit that Paul taught about was speaking in tongues -- and the gift of interpretation or explanation. We should have learned by now that when we as Christians speak in tongues, the Holy Spirit is speaking through us and speaking things that are deep in our own spirit and may not even be known to us. This is the "groanings" thing.

Romans 8:26-27 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. [KJV]

The Gifts of the Spirit provide us as Christians tools to counter the language of Satan. One of them is speaking in tongues. When we speak in tongues, we cannot lie to God. If we use our own reasoning, we might be presenting to God a false witness. Purposely? Probably not. But what if we have been deceived? What if we have not been using the Gifts of God and making decisions for the church without God’s input?

1 Corinthians 12:4-12 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

WISDOM

KNOWLEDGE

PROPHECY

DISCERNMENT

TONGUES

INTERPRETATION

Two thirds of the gifts have to do with supernatural information. It seems as if the Holy Spirit is providing Gifts to the church to counter the language of Satan. This is so that we can make decisions based upon truth and not the deceit of this world.

Imaging raising children when and where you know the truth ahead of time. Imagine dealing with marital difficulties with the same type of knowledge Peter had when dealing with Ananias and Saphirra.–not that lying spouses would die, but that the secrets would be gone. Imagine a church or denomination that would make their "worldly" decisions based upon knowledge from God rather than their own financial planning. Maybe there would be less church buildings converted into bars -- or multi-million mortgages that do not solve multi-service problems: believing and acting on the lie.

"False testimony" may have as much or more to do with reciting and using Satan’s language than just being a witness in court. When we speak, do we recite Satan or Holy Spirit? Have we been deceived? Which tongue do we use? Whose tongue do we use? The gifts are ours.