Every Idle Word

“EVERY IDLE WORD”

Truth, Memory, and the Cost of Lying

SCRIPTURE READING:

“Bad people trip over their own lying lips.

Good people don’t have a lip problem.” (Proverbs 12:13)

(Stephen Miler’s Casual Version of Bible)

PROLOGUE

Have you ever noticed that some of the people that influenced your life long ago, their voices still echo around in your mind?

That is definitely true for me. Case in point, Merritt Newell Williams my maternal grandfather, an elder at the Ninth and Main Church of Christ in San Angelo Texas. He had many witty clever yet wise sayings that to this good day I can still hear him say. Stuff like, “a person who talks to himself is a person who likes to hear a wise man talk.” Or, while standing in a room filled with rowdy grandchildren, he would lament, “To engage in an intelligent conversation around this place, I'll have to talk to myself.”

But one that I found particularly inspiring in my own life was when I heard him say, “If you tell the truth you don't have to remember what you said.”

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, it is simple to trace the origin of such a phrase. The best-attested “origin” people point to is Mark Twain, in a notebook entry from January/February 1894, later published in Mark Twain’s Notebook (ed. Albert Bigelow Paine, 1935). Twain’s phrasing is usually given as:

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

(The idea—truth doesn’t require constant “story management.”)

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I.) A BIBLE MESSAGE FOR TODAY IN MODERN AMERICA

America is drowning in words.

Texts, posts, comments, DMs, screenshots, recordings, body-cams, emails, contracts, “he said / she said,” hot takes, spin, branding, PR. We live in a nation where everything is said, and almost nothing is forgotten—because the internet has a long memory even when people don’t.

[I once heard Ted Koppel (an American broadcast journalist best known as the longtime anchor and managing editor of ABC’s Nightline,) state “There has never been a time when so much is recorded, but so little is worth remembering.”]

And that’s exactly why my grandfather’s saying lands like a hammer.

When a man lies, he doesn’t just speak one falsehood—he starts a job. He has to remember who he told it to, how he told it, what he promised, which version he used last time, and what new patch he’ll need next week. Scripture calls it a “tangled” path—crooked, complicated, unstable.

But God’s way is mercifully simple:

• “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour.” (Ephesians 4:25)

• “Lie not one to another…” (Colossians 3:9)

• “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay…” (Matthew 5:37)

• “He that walketh uprightly walketh surely…” (Proverbs 10:9)

• “The lip of truth shall be established for ever…” (Proverbs 12:19)

II.) HERE’S THE MODERN APPLICATION:

1) Truth is the only “low-maintenance” life

In a world that pressures you to curate an image, the Lord calls you to character. The truth may cost you in the moment, but it pays you back with something priceless: a clear conscience and a steady story.

2) In the age of receipts, truth is protection

A lie used to fade into the air. Now it gets forwarded, clipped, archived, and resurfaced. If your words are true, you don’t have to fear the replay.

3) Truth is worship

God doesn’t just want correct doctrine; He wants clean speech because He is the God of truth. When you refuse deception—at work, at home, on taxes, online—you aren’t “just being honest.” You’re reflecting the Father.

4) The gospel itself is God telling the truth about us—and then saving us anyway

God tells the truth: we have sinned. But He also tells the truth about His mercy: He provides cleansing through Christ. That’s why Christians should be the easiest people in town to deal with: no hidden fees, no fake promises, no double-talk—just “yes” and “no,” with honesty and repentance when we fail.

EPILOGUE:

If you want peace in your home, steadiness in your name, and freedom in your mind, choose the old path: tell the truth. Let truth be your habit, not your emergency exit. Because the man who tells the truth doesn’t need a perfect memory—he only needs integrity.

POST SCRIPT

Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.” Matthew 12:36 MSG

INVITATION