Sept 10, 2000 Exodus 20:16
“Liar, liar; pants on fire”
INTRODUCTION
“Liar, liar! Pants on fire! Nose that’s as long as a telephone wire!” Probably all of us either said that or had it said to us when we were kids. It’s a good thing that it’s not really true. Otherwise, many of us would be walking with a limp, burnt and in a lot of pain. Some churches might even come in both regular and extra crispy.
As a pastor, I face the possibility that I could speak on a topic that is really not an issue in the lives of the people in attendance that day. It’s called “Scratching where no one is itching.” To prevent this problem in one church, the “minister wound up the services one morning by saying, "Next Sunday I am going to preach on the subject of LIARS. And in this connection, I would like you all to read the 17th chapter of Mark." The next Sunday, the preacher rose to begin, and said, "Now, all of you who have done as I requested and read the 17th chapter of Mark, please raise your hands." Nearly every hand in the congregation went up. "Very good," said the preacher. "You are precisely the people I wish to speak to this morning. There IS no 17th chapter of Mark!"” – Bible Illustrator.
Is there ever a time that lying is ok? How serious a matter is lying? Consider how serious lying would be in the following situations:
Firestone official: “The tires that you are riding on are safe.”
Presidential candidate: “I promise that there will be no new taxes.”
Trial witness: “I saw Carol Hardman with the group that robbed Wes Banco Friday night.”
Airplane mechanic: “The engine you saw me working on will last through your entire flight.”
Groom: “I will be faithful to you alone until death.”
God considers lying a very serious matter regardless of whether the consequences of that lie are immediate and deadly or not. (Prov 6:16-19 NIV) There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
Yet as much as God hates lying, I doubt that there is a church or any group of people where there is not a large contingency of liars present. May I suggest that many of you have probably already lied to someone this morning. Just in case you may be living in denial of your own tendency toward lying, I have prepared a list of some of the most common lies that we tell or that get told to us. See if you can find yourself anywhere on this list. [deal with the list in reverse order]
1. When someone asks you on Sunday morning how you are doing, you say “Fine”.
Sunday mornings, that morning that we’re supposed to be the most spiritual, is in reality the day that we lie the most. We put on our nice clothes to hide the sin that is inside. We plaster on a fake smile to hide the heart that is breaking. We answer, “I’m just fine” to people when they ask us how we are doing even though our life may be falling apart. Why is that? Maybe we’re scared that no one cares, that no one has the time, or that someone would reject us if they really knew what was going on inside our hearts. The Bible doesn’t speak of church as a place where perfect people come to congratulate one another on how perfect they are. It talks about church as a place where hurting people come to admit their hurt and find healing for their hurt. The book of James records God’s command to “Confess your faults one to another” so that you might be healed. (James 5:16) The church house should be the place where we are the most free to be ourselves and admit our weakness. That’s why we’ve come here today – to admit our weakness before a holy God and to praise Him for His holiness and strength.
2. The policeman asks you, “Do you know how fast you were going?”. You answer, “No; was I speeding?”
3. Someone calls on the phone for you, and you step outside the door so that your wife or child can say that you are not in at the moment.
“A salesman knocked on the door of a rundown apartment house in a low-rent district. The mother didn’t want to talk to the guy, so she told her little boy to tell him she couldn’t come tot he door because she was in the bathtub. Her son answered the door this way; ‘We ain’t got no bathtub, but Mom told me to tell you she’s in it.’” [Tales of the Tardy Oxcart, p. 344]
4. You’d really rather not go in to work on Monday, so you call in sick and go shopping.
Awe; it hurts when we get lied to by our boss, but when we lie to get what we want, that doesn’t hurt quite so much. That’s even kind of fun. Reminds me of a quote that I read this week. "Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth." - Richard Whately [Instant Quotation Dictionary, p. 293.]
5. Your boss promises you a raise 6 months after you begin work, but 12 months go by with no raise in sight.
How does it make you feel when you get lied to? How does it make you feel when you get lied about?
6. The last birthday that you counted was 15 years ago.
“While Jan was visiting her mother, they went for a walk and bumped into the pastor. "Is this your daughter?" he asked. "Oh my, I remember her when she was this high." Without pausing Jan’s mother said, "Well, she’s twenty-four now." Jan, 35-years-old, nearly fainted on the spot. After everyone had said their good-byes, Jan asked her mother why she’d told such a whopper. "Well," she replied, "I’ve been lying about my age for so long, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d have to start lying about yours too."” – Bible Illustrator. Your age is not important; lying about it is.
7. If you buy a certain car, then you will be wealthy and popular.
8. You promise to spend more time with your family, but you never seem to get around to it.
9. The fish gets bigger every time that you tell the story.
10. The cashier assumes that your children are under the age limit that gets a free meal at the restaurant, and you don’t correct the error.
11. On Sunday morning, your wife asks how you like the new dress that she just bought, and you answer, “It looks beautiful” in order to not hurt her feelings.
Why is it so important to tell the truth?
- truth evidences a change in your life (Col. 3:9-10 “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices . . . “; I Jn. 2:21 “I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth”); lies evidence that you are still a liar
In Jn. 14:7, Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth”. When you took Jesus as your Savior, you received the Holy Spirit who now lives within you and is supposed to be in control of your life. If the Spirit of Truth is present and in control, what should be flowing out of your life? [TRUTH] Then how come you are still lying? Lying in your life brings into question either the presence of the Holy Spirit which would mean you are not saved, or it brings into question whether He has control of your life.
- truth provides protection for you (Phil 4:8 – “Whatsoever is true . . . think on these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”; Eph. 6:14 – “Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled . . .”); lies provide a false sense of security (Isaiah 28:15 “. . . we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”)
“In a survey . . . it was found that 15 percent of the ladies tinted their hair, 38 percent wore a wig, 80 percent wore rouge, 98 percent wore eye shadow, 22 percent wore false eyelashes, 93 percent wore nail polish. And 100 percent voted in favor of a resolution condemning any kind of false packaging.” [Tales of the Tardy Oxcart, p. 146]
- truth identifies you with the Father (Jn. 14:6 – “I am the way, the truth, and the life . . . “ Heb. 6:8 “ . . . impossible for God to lie . . .”) ; lies identify you with Satan (Jn. 8:44ff – Satan is the “father of lies”)
One of the verses I referred to a moment ago talked about the fact that it is impossible for God to lie. Have you ever thought about what it would be like if God could lie? Think about some of the promises that He has made to you:
“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.”
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”
“But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God”
“. . . nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
“My God shall supply all your needs . . .“
What if God could lie? What if all the promises were just a bunch of lies? You may have had persons who made promises to you. They promised you a special gift for Christmas. They promised that they would ride bikes with you when they got home. They promised that they would be faithful to you. They promised that they would always love you. They promised that they would never go away. But they broke their promises because they were just weak human beings, so now you have trouble trusting anyone who makes promises. God is very different from human being. The fact is that God cannot lie. “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man , that he should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” (Num. 23:19) The biggest promise that God ever made was that He would send a Savior to pay the debt that the sins of mankind had incurred. What a promise? And then when that Savior, Jesus, came, He promised that He was going to die and then come back to life! The promise gets even bigger! Kind of like when mom and dad promise that they are going to take you to Disneyworld for your Christmas present and that they’re going to let you pick all the rides that the family will ride and you can eat whatever snacks and sweets you want. The bigger the promise gets, the more unbelievable it becomes. But as big as the promise was, Jesus did come, He did die, He did pay the penalty for man’s sin, He did rise from the dead, and He did make forgiveness available to all. If God can fulfill a promise like that, then He can fulfill any promise because it is impossible for God to lie. When I fulfill my promises, when I tell the truth regardless of the cost, it allows me to carry the same identification as God – “Truth-teller”, “Promise-keeper”. Someone who tells the truth all the time is someone who can be trusted.
- truth creates a spirit of trust (Psalm 31:5-6 “Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth. I hate those who cling to worthless idols; I trust in the LORD”); lies create a spirit of deceit and hypocrisy
Did you ever notice that kids can be a little bit too honest. “Mrs. Fisher was recovering from surgery and got a card from her fourth- grade class: ‘Dear Mrs. Fisher, Your fourth-grade class wishes you a speedy recovery by a vote of 15-14.’” [Tales of the Tardy Oxcart, p. 588] The real problem with children is not that they are too honest. It’s just that they haven’t learned to “speak the truth in love.” (Eph. 4:15) But the great thing about children is that since they are so honest and have no pretense about them, you can usually trust that what they say about what they think of you is the truth. If you ask their opinion about something – if you ask them, “How do I look?”, they’ll tell you what they really think rather than telling you what they think you want to hear. That may hurt sometimes, but it creates a great level of trust. We adults though have learned to lie whenever it benefits us, whenever telling the truth would create a situation that we really don’t want to have to deal with, or whenever keeping a promise would cost us too much. When we get into the habit of telling the truth all the time, we will get a reputation as an honest person. Then when we ask, “How do I look?”, they will be able to respond, “You look like someone that I can trust.”
- truth exposes danger to be avoided (1 Tim. 2:4 “[God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”) ; lies open you up to destruction
Do you know what the truth that God wants all men to know? He wants them to know that they are sinners. And He wants them to know that because of their sin, they stand condemned to eternity suffering in hell. It would seem that the nice thing for God to do would be to just keep our dirtiness a secret and let us go on believing the lie that we have told ourselves. You know the lie I’m talking about, don’t you. The lie that says that we are ok, that we’re pretty good, that God is going to let us off the hook because we’ve been pretty decent people. The Bible records that “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death.” (Prov. 14:12) The most unloving thing for God to do would be to allow us to continue to believe that lie without challenging it. By telling us the truth, God has given us a way to escape the dangerous situation that we were in.
On Sunday nights, we have been studying different religions of the United States and the world. As we take a look at the different beliefs of each of these religions, we also see how the Bible answers each of these beliefs and presents what is the truth. There are going to be many teachers that will tell you that it really doesn’t matter which pathway you use to get you to God and heaven. All roads lead to heaven, or that’s what they would have you to believe. But the reality is that one road leads to heaven and all other roads lead to eternal destruction. God has given us one way to get to heaven, and that way is through Jesus Christ. The truth about Jesus will keep you out of danger but those who would lie and tell you that you can get to God on your own terms and in your own way are giving you a lie that will destroy you.
While we’re on this subject of salvation and the truth, let me ask you something, how many of you are lying to your neighbors and your co-workers? You say, “I’m not lying to anyone.” Do you remember one of those lies that I talked about on my top ten list – the one about letting the cashier assume your children are a certain age so that they can get a free meal? How many of your neighbors and co-workers and the inhabitants of Bridgeport are living under the false assumption that they are going to heaven because they have been good or because God is so loving that He wouldn’t let anyone go to hell? Are you doing anything to correct that false assumption? Are you telling them the truth so that they can avoid the danger that is awaiting them? Some people don’t respond too well to the truth. But we don’t have the option of only telling the truth when it’s comfortable and convenient. We are the ones who know what is coming. If we don’t warn them about the pit that is standing in front of them, who will?
- truth sets a good pattern for your life (and for your family); lies set an evil pattern for your life
“George Munzing, a minister, tells of a time he went to counsel a family about their son’s drug use. The father was distraught as he described the impact of drugs upon his relationship with his son. He said, "The thing that bothers me most about his being into drugs is the fact that drugs have made him a liar." Moments later the phone rang and his wife went to answer. She came back into the room with the message that the call was for the father. He told her, "Tell him I am not at home." Munzing then commented that drugs had not made the boy a liar; the father had.” – Bible Illustrator. What kind of an example are you to your kids when it comes to truth?
Do you remember what I said about giving last week? When you give, whether the amount is small or great is not the issue. Establishing a pattern of giving is the issue. The same is true of lying. There is no such thing as a “white lie”. All lies, whether they are small or of world-wide consequence, are as dark as hell in God’s eyes. Someone has well said that a little lie is like a little pregnancy. Everyone is going to know soon enough. [C.S. Lewis] The more you practice the art of lying, the better you become at it and the easier it becomes to use it in any situation. In the parable of the talents, Jesus told us a principle that applies here. The one that is faithful in a few things will be faithful over great things. (Matt. 25:23) If you are faithful to tell the truth in the small issues, then you will establish a pattern that will enable you to tell the truth in the big issues too.
- truth frees (Jn 8:32 – “. . . truth will set you free.”); lies enslave
Mark Twain was right when he said, “The difference between a person who tells the truth and tells a lie is that the liar’s got to have a better memory.” [Tales of the Tardy Oxcart, p. 344] Lies trap you because you have to live in your own false little world that you have created. You can’t allow anyone to see the true you. You have to keep up the show and keep pretending that you’re that person that everyone loves you to be.
But truth frees you to enjoy all the benefits and promises that God has offered to you. When you are truthful about your sin, the truth frees you to enjoy God’s forgiveness. When you accept the truth that you are acceptable in God’s sight, then it frees you to be who you are in Christ without worrying about the condemnation of other people. The truth that God is in control frees you from being trapped by worry about the future. And the truth that God loves you no matter what frees you from always having to live up to someone else’s standard in order to receive their approval and love. “You will know that truth, and the truth will set you free.”
TRANS: But Satan – the father of lies – doesn’t want you to be free. He wants you to be eternally trapped, enslaved in his grasp. So he puts some lies in our path and in our minds to prevent us from coming to grips with the truth.
Lie #1 “God is out to stop your fun!” – Satan (Gen. 2:25-3:8)
2:25 – “naked . . . no shame” totally open and honest; nothing to hide; how would you like to live in a world like that? Not necessarily naked physically, but a place where you could be totally naked emotionally and even spiritually with no fear of how anyone is going to react. That’s the kind of world that they enjoyed. Then Satan came along.
3:1 – “Did God . . .” causing her to doubt God who is the Truth-teller
3:4 – “eyes will be opened . . . like God . . .“ God is holding out on you; God is out to stop your fun! He wants to keep all the fun for Himself! One thing that he didn’t tell them was the consequences of their actions.
3:7-10 – “naked . . . coverings [masks] . . . hid from the Lord God . . . afraid because I was naked . . . hid” When Adam and Eve listened to a lie, their immediate reaction was to cover up their vulnerability – to put masks on. That’s really what lies are – an attempt to cover up our feelings or our actions so that we are not vulnerable to the attacks of others. Satan’s lie and their response to that lie separated them from one another and from God. When they hid behind clothing and behind the trees, they became liars themselves because they could no longer be totally open and honest with themselves or with God. I can’t let you see me totally open and honest – just the way that I am - because of the fear that I have that if you saw me just as I am, you would reject me. And that all happened because of Satan’s denial of God as the Truth-teller and his lie that God is holding out on you.
Satan tells the same lie today. He tells people that the only way that they are going to have any fun and really enjoy life is to leave God and His way behind. All God’s laws, these 10 commandments that we’ve been studying, they’re just a restriction on your freedom. Let go of them; go out and party! What he doesn’t tell you is that God gave you these laws because He knows that following them is the way for you to have the most fulfilling life. Jesus said, “I am come that they may have life, and that they may have it to the full.” (John 10:10) God’s desire is that we enjoy life, but He knows the only way that is going to happen is as we live it in relationship with Him.
There’s another lie that Satan tells when we believe the first one and disobey God’s laws. He says, “Run! Hide! God is really out to get you now! You can never be acceptable in His sight ever again!” But God – the Truth-teller, the one for whom it is impossible to lie – says (Isa 1:18 NIV) "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Our natural response as children or adults when we know that we have done something that is wrong is to run and hide. Avoid the person that we have offended. They’ll be mad. They may not love us anymore. There may be punishment. But God says that His love for us will never change. And He offers forgiveness if we will but come to Him and ask for it.
Lie #2 “What people think you are is more important than what you are.” – Hypocrite (Acts 5:1-11)
4:32-37 bkgrnd – this is the passage we read last week. Everyone in the early church was selling all their goods and giving the money to meet the needs of everyone else in the community.
5:1 Ananias: “We want to look good too” or at least “We don’t want to look stingy, so we’d better sell our land too”.
5:2-10a tell rest of story making sure to explain the nature of the lie; the lie of hypocrisy led to lying to the church and lying to God
Do you know that Jesus never got angry at those who admitted their own sinfulness. You’ll never find a place where He got angry at a prostitute, a thief, a swindler, a murderer, or an adulterer. But Jesus did angry at hypocrites – those who were more concerned with what people thought of them than they were concerned about actually being right in God’s sight. (Mat 23:13,15,23 NIV) "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. . . "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. . . "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. A few verses later in that same passage (vs. 27), Jesus called them “whitewashed tombs”. They looked good on the outside, but on the inside, they were dead men’s bones.
Each of you is here today. That’s good. I applaud you for that. Being in this house is supposed to mean that you have a desire to worship God, that you desire for Him to change your life, and that you have a passion to see people come into and grow in their relationship with God. Being here does not mean that you are perfect, but it means that you are working to become like Jesus. Is that why you are here today? Are you living like a hypocrite? You say you believe one way and then you live different from what you say you believe. Then you are a hypocrite and a liar. (1 John 2:4 NIV) The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 4:20 NIV) If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. Do you know how many times someone has refused to put their faith in Jesus for salvation because they saw someone who claimed to have Christ in their lives and yet lived the same as everyone else does? They refuse Christ because of hypocrites. What an awful thought to think that someone might have looked at my life to see if this Christianity is real or not and chose to walk away because they saw no difference between my life and their own. Are you a hypocrite?
Lie #3 “I don’t need God’s forgiveness. I’m fine just the way I am.” – Someone with a reservation in Hell (Luke 18:9-14)
CONCLUSION
The very first lie that we talked about this morning was the lie that we tell in response to the question, “How do I look?” I’ve asked [person’s name] to help me this morning with a little experiment. [have pre-arranged person come forward] We’re going to dress this person up with some special attributes. [have person stand with back to congregation; place pre-made cards on person either hanging them around their neck or taping them on their back; cards should read “Adulterer”, “Liar”, “Promise-breaker”, “Cheater”, “Thief”, “Hypocrite”] Now, let’s bring this person before Jesus, [have person walk up to the cross and stand in front of it] and have him ask, “How do I look, Jesus?” If Jesus responds, “You look fine”, that person may like it, but he dies and goes to hell. But if Jesus responds, “You’re covered in sin. Here, I paid for those. Let me take them from you. Let me take your hypocritical lifestyle. Let me take all the things you’ve stolen. Etc. I will forgive you and make you into a brand new person.” [person places placards or signs on the cross and then kneels in front of cross; then take placards back off cross, turn them around and place them back on volunteer with new designations “Truth-walker”, “Giver”, “Honest”, “Promise-keeper”, “Truth-teller”, “Faithful One”; then have person exit stage to back of auditorium and you come back down to floor]
INVITATION
If you were to ask Jesus, “How do I look?”, what would he say? What signs would he hang around your neck – “Liar”, “Hypocrite”, “Cheater”. We all carry those signs to one extent or another. You’ve broken promises to your family, you’ve broken promises to God. When you asked Jesus to be your savior, you promised Him your life. But you’ve taken it back so many times. Why don’t you come and bring it to the foot of the cross this morning?
Maybe you have been lied to so many times that you have trouble trusting Jesus. Remember, Jesus is not like us. It is impossible for Him to lie. He has kept every promise to you that He ever made. He promises salvation to those who will call upon Him – admit their own sinfulness, believe that He died to pay for their sins and rose again back to life, and commit their whole life into His hands. He promises forgiveness if we will confess our sins to Him. We have failed over and over again in our attempts to keep our promises to Jesus, but He has never failed to keep one single promise to us. Ask for His forgiveness today, and He will give it.
