We live in a world where lying is everywhere. Your children lie to keep from getting a spanking. Friends lie to one another to keep from hurting feelings. Employees lie to cover up their laziness. We lie by exaggeration to make a story more believable, and we lie by flattery to make others feel good. We have fooled ourselves into believing that certain lying is ok. Today’s last sin on the list in Colossians chapter 3 is lying. How did we get to this place where we make the rules on what is right and wrong? Have we become our own god when it comes to telling the truth?
Colossians 3:9 “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;”
Colossians chapter 3 has a list of things we are to put off when we become a Christian. The old man is to die and the new man in Christ is to become alive. Lying stands alone in its own verse. It is a sin God hates. In Proverbs 6:17, God hates a lying tongue. He sandwiches it between a proud look and a murderer. If God hates it and puts it in the same list as a murderer, I think it would do us well to examine the seriousness of the sin and how we allow it to creep into our lives.
Proverbs 6:17 “A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,”
Our government thinks it is so bad that you can go to jail for lying. It is called perjury. This is where you make a false statement in a court of law under oath or give a sworn statement in writing. Many innocent people have gone to jail because someone lied on a witness stand.
What about flattery? This is excessive and insincere praise. Most often it is given to further one’s own interest. An employee may brag about the boss because they want a promotion. A child may tell Mommy how pretty she is because they desire something Mommy would normally say no to. Sometimes we do this because we want others to feel good about themselves, but lying is never right. Flattery is lying. A form of flattery is what Delilah used to get Samson to tell her the truth about his strength. In Judges chapter 16, you can see where that got him!
Is exaggeration a lie? Exaggeration is what we call stretching the truth. In exaggeration, the fundamental aspects of the statements are true, but only to a certain degree. We exaggerate to make something appear more meaningful than it really is. This is done a lot when people are telling about a funny situation. The laughter just seems to fuel the story until exaggeration occurs. This is still a lie.
Then there are those who tell a lie because they try to spin everything to their benefit. We would use the term bold-faced liar. They know the truth, but prefer to lie. We judge this one more harshly because it was a lie by design to mislead others. Most often it is told to hurt another person. However, a lie is still a lie and God hates it.
In John 8:44 Jesus himself said that the father of lies is the devil. He says we lie because we are of our father the devil. There is no truth in the devil, and we are not to be in any way like him.
John 8:44 “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
Lying should be stopped because the old man is to be put off, gone, and the new man in Christ is to rein. In Colossians 3:9, Paul is instructing believers to not lie to each other. Lying kills trust between people and the church is one place that people should be able to depend on and trust one another.
Lying is a sin that destroys lives. It destroys trust and it’s a sin that feeds itself. One lie leads to another and then you tell another one to prop up the first one. Usually, this is how a lie is found out because it just gets bigger and bigger until the truth is exposed.
We need to be careful what we say and even how we say it. Even the truth said in a certain way can be misleading and if it is intentional it is a lie. Lying is a sin that is serious to God, and it must be serious to us. There is no such thing as a little white lie to God. As you go through today think about what you are saying and how you are saying it. Are you trying to lead someone in a direction away from the truth?
