Using lies to cover lies?

Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”; therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’ And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.” Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message. (Isaiah 28:15–19)

The one thing that I cannot bear is lies. If a person lies to me, I usually cut them off. In my mind, the relationship cannot be anything more than superficial or artificial. Trust is broken and without a restoration of reliability, I tend to want proof before believing anything that person says. 

This sounds cruel and a lack of love for the NT says: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” However, it also describes love as “not insisting on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:5–7)

Another verse says, “By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Romans 3:4) and Jesus called religious unbelievers ‘liars’ in John 8:44. Does everyone lie except God?
 
It is plain that trusting God makes sense. It also makes sense that in many matters of life, I can evaluate trust by comparing what people say and do with what God says and does. Those who can admit lying may be justified in their words, and “prevail when judged.” This is the value of confessing sin. If a person can do that, they seem far more likely to be honest about most things. But if the lie is covered by another lie, this is a red flag, a warning to be cautious with my trust.

It is folly to lie to God. He knows my thoughts and my heart, even the words I will say before I say them. His foundation is Jesus Christ and every person will be tested alongside this sinless cornerstone. Apart from faith in Him, in His death and resurrection, who can pass that test? 

As the Word says, hating lies is a godly attitude, but hating people is not. The only way I can manage that is to pray for those who lie and ask God to deal with them in such a way that the reasons for those lies, such as fear, false ambition, self-protection, etc., fall away. Liars need to know that they are perfectly loved regardless of their performance.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:18–21)

My attitude toward those who lie is an attitude of fear also, of not trusting God to deal with them, and not being willing to be like Jesus who died for those who sin, including the sin of lying. I know these things, yet sometimes let my own fears allow the flesh to deal with liars instead of trusting the Spirit of God.

Jesus, this has been a difficult couple of days, yet I know Your heart of exposing my lack of obedience is an act of love. You want me to be like You — and that is the most loving motivation of all. So is Your power to change my heart. Keep my focus stayed on You, not on the pain of being lied to, or on using anger to deal with the pain. Your response is the only way: Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing… 

What is truth?

 

These days I dislike several television items: the news, and various pundits who discuss what they think will happen. The dictionary describes them as: “an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called on to give opinions about it to the public.” Expert or not, they are still offering an opinion. No one knows the future.

Google says that, “When their personal opinion outweighs considered judgment, people who give opinions, whether on current events, public affairs, sports, media or art are often referred to as "pundits" instead of critics. Critics are themselves subject to competing critics, since the final critical judgment always entails subjectivity.”

While pundits may not call their opinions lies, they cannot claim them to be true. I’ve had a aversion to lies, partly because of the insult I feel when someone lies to me, but even more when I experience the harm that a lie does, whether it is presented as news, or whispered as gossip. If someone lies to me and I catch it, trusting them in the future is almost impossible.

Today’s devotional gives reasons for being more interested in truth. Piper writes that God is truth. This makes lies a total affront to who He is, the triune God. Nothing can nullify His faithfulness and reliability:

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3:3–4)

This Almighty God became flesh and His Son, who is the image of the Father, is glorified as truth: 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)
And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. (Matthew 22:16)

Jesus Himself declared, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). The Apostle John saw Jesus glorified as faithful and true. He said, “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war” (Revelation 19:11).

God also lives out the life of the Father and the Son to me in His Spirit, the Spirit of truth. As Jesus said, “When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness of me.… When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 15:26; 16:13a).

Before Jesus came into my life, every person that I trusted as friends lied to me . Was God allowing that so I would be eager to know Him, the reliable One who would never lie? Perhaps. I once wrote a long poem on how much truth matters. It is an important part of trust. If God makes a promise, believing it depends on being totally convinced that He speaks truth. He will do whatever He says He will do because He is truth. 

PRAY: I see how important truth is and why You have given me a great sensitivity to lies. One more reason is that the devil is a liar. You told those who refused to trust You, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) My heart craves truth in defiance of this enemy who wants to destroy my faith with his schemes. Thank You for being the truth and being my Savior from sin — and from lies.

God is not mocked

We joke in our family that “normal” is only a setting on the dryer. “Perfect” has to fall into the same category. As my mother would quip, “There ain’t no such thing.”

Even so, these verses describing the church sound really good: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” (Ephesians 2:19–21)

They give me an image of a solid structure that is unified and set apart to serve God. But if anyone is looking for a perfect church, they will be disappointed. Even in the beginning, the church was not the ideal. 

One of the first problems was a prideful couple who wanted to impress others with their generosity. They sold some property and gave some of the profit to the church. A partial donation was not a problem. What was a problem is that they told everyone that they had given ALL of the money.

Peter confronted the husband first. This man was so shocked that he died on the spot. Then his wife came in and Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

She also immediately fell and died. The result was that “great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.” (Acts 5:9–11)

This story is horrifying. At first I thought Peter was much too harsh, but that reveals how my understanding of holiness is not even close to how Peter and the early church understood it. For them, lying to God and each other was dire sin. It was a lie to God and also broke the bond of unity that He had given them in Christ. This couple thought more about themselves than they did about that unity and holiness, and about the close fellowship of this body of believers.

This story also shows what God thinks about hypocrisy in His people, and even about any who claim to be His children but try to impress others by being loose with the truth. He had warned them for years about the importance of truth and the relationship of truth to knowing Him as their God: “Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:5–6)

God knows the root of such sin. It comes from a heart that is bent on doing its own thing, a heart that may be able to fool others, but He is not fooled or mocked. He says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord . . . The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:5–9)

This couple paid a high price for their deception. If they were genuine in their faith, this sin was covered by the blood of Christ, but it still had consequences; they both died because of it. Their story may have been on Paul’s mind when he wrote, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

Purity in the church and in individual Christian lives is far more important than most Christians realize. As I read this, I’m thinking that I can never allow the abundance of God’s grace to be an excuse to let my pride and sinful old self be deceitful and mock God or His family, particularly in a silly effort to look better than I am.

Abhorring doubt

Small children tend to believe everything they are told. Sadly, experience soon teaches them that this is not always so. I can remember the first few times that I realized even my best friends lied to me. For me, this was a deeply troubling offense and an insult. Certainly childlike believing was easier than trying to discern a lie, yet I also wanted to be trusted. Those lies created a barrier that became difficult to overcome.

When Christ came into my life, I knew that I had discovered Someone who did not lie. However, I also discovered something that troubles me far more than being lied to — my own sinful tendency to doubt God, the One who never lies. 

And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” (Numbers 14:11)

Spurgeon calls unbelief a monster, a weed, worse than a weed. When it seeds itself in our hearts, we must aim at its root with zeal and perseverance, yet even when one weed is eliminated, more crop up to take its place. Doubt is faith’s great enemy.

Doubting the Lord hurts me, but what does it do to Jesus? I hate lies, but I also am personally wounded if someone does not believe me. How then must the one who said, “I am truth” respond when I do not believe what He says? Does doubt put a dagger deep into His loyal and faithful heart?

Sometimes I will tell someone a truth, the listener agrees with me, but then carries on as if I had never spoken. This too is hurtful and an insult. Yet I do it to Jesus. I agree with His wonderful words and write about them. I tell others what He says, loving His words and knowing they are true. But do I live according to what I know? Do I follow through with a changed life?

As Spurgeon says, Jesus has never given the slightest ground for my doubts. He is God the Son, sovereign and loving. He is the same today as yesterday and forever. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Nothing is too difficult for Him. He can meet any need, solve any problem.

Should I worry that my prayers will go unanswered? Or that He will not keep His promises? Or that I will be in need and He will turn His back? Spurgeon asks, “If Christ were only a cistern, we might soon exhaust his fulness, but who can drain a fountain?”

Another author, John Bunyan, says that unbelief has “as many lives as a cat.” It seems to me this is an understatement. In my sinful heart, doubt is more like dandelions. Even those that I think have been dug out to the root have a way of popping up again with even greater vigor, taking over the field of my heart.

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Lord, I so identify with the man who said, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Doubt is a terrible insult to You and a traitor that habitually threatens my soul. Never do I want You to feel the insult that I feel when someone does not believe what I say, yet even as I write those words, I know that I am prone to doubt, prone to hearing the lies of Satan rather than remembering the truth that You always speak. I abhor the reality that my doubt insults You.  You are my Savior and from this sin I also need redemption. You have taught me to love truth. Keep teaching me to always recognize the source of my doubts and deal with this enemy until doubt can no longer find a place to grow in my life.

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