A Chicago Tribune article revealed in 1991 reported an astonishing examine: On the time, the American Affiliation for the Development of Science stated of humanity, “Proficiency at mendacity could also be the most effective measure of development, with primates far more adept at it than different mammals and human beings probably the most masterful liars on the planet.” Proficiency in mendacity, the Affiliation reasoned, is the most effective measure of our progress as a individuals. We’re what we’re due to our skill to deceive, perjure, and warp the reality.
This considering is in pressure with what we uncover within the Bible. The Scriptures introduce us to a God who’s a truth-telling, promise-keeping God. Proverbs tells us the Almighty hates “a mendacity tongue” (6:17). Certainly, a tradition that treats mendacity as both a advantage or a permissible approach to “bend the principles” relatively than a sin won’t ever make progress within the issues of God.
What the Tradition Says About Mendacity
The truth that some view mendacity as a viable possibility is intently tied to their rejection of biblical teachings. Disregard God as He has revealed Himself within the Bible, and there’s no longer an final foundation for reality telling.
Within the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western tradition started to persuade itself that the God of the Bible was a nonexistent being. Atheism’s reputation grew. The social utility of Darwin’s idea of evolution supplied an alternative choice to telling the reality, mendacity changing into mandatory in a society the place solely the fittest would survive.
Disregard God as He has revealed Himself within the Bible, and there’s no longer an final foundation for reality telling.
The compounding results of this worldview have been tragic. A diminishing variety of individuals appear to imagine that honesty is the most effective coverage; as an alternative, they insist that mendacity could also be justified, relying on the circumstances. Even kids—a few of whom have now grown to maturity—have discovered that it’s acceptable to lie. Way back to three and a half many years in the past, one publication was already describing mendacity as “an vital step within the growth of the self.” The time between then and now has solely exacerbated the issue.
Proficiency at mendacity is a mark of human development, stated the Affiliation. Mendacity will not be solely regular however mandatory for a kid’s growth, reported Baby journal. Numerous others have adopted. It’s no surprise why, many years later, our tradition is in a state of ethical and religious decline.
What the Bible Says About Mendacity
In fact, mendacity isn’t something new. 600 years earlier than Christ, God spoke by the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
Run from side to side by the streets of Jerusalem,
look and take observe!
Search her squares to see
if you’ll find a person,
one who does justice
and seeks reality,
that I’ll pardon her. (Jer. 5:1)
Previous Testomony Israel’s ethical material was in shambles as a result of they denied the worship owed solely to the true God. It’s not that they weren’t non secular; in truth, they have been extremely excited by religious issues. However they created for themselves gods that will do what they desired relatively than concern the Creator, to whom they have been accountable. To make use of Paul’s language, “they exchanged the reality about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:25).
We inform lies by perjury, spreading rumors, slander, deception, and flattery. And such mendacity has far-reaching penalties, in response to Scripture. Telling lies dishonors God and demeans others. It disfigures the picture of God in us, wherein we’ve been created as ethical beings.
We lie as a result of we’re principally sinful, stuffed with delight. We fail to adapt to the standard Christ, who “got here to not be served however to serve” (Mark 10:45). We reside for our personal glory, doing every part we are able to to avoid wasting face and impress individuals.
Telling lies dishonors God and demeans others. It disfigures the picture of God in us.
Removed from a mark of societal progress, mendacity is compelling proof that man will not be what God meant him to be. “The depraved are estranged from the womb,” says the psalmist; “they go astray from start, talking lies” (58:3). Dad and mom know by expertise that they don’t have to show their babies to inform lies—it’s in them from start! And so many a guardian has needed to ask the inevitable query: What will we do about this endemic downside?
What to Do About Mendacity
The Bible not solely exposes our sin nature in relation to mendacity; it additionally tells us what we have to do to be made proper with God. Merely put, we’ve to face the reality and come to the Reality.
Dealing with the reality is tough. We don’t need to accomplish that, as a result of the reality condemns us. It’s why many don’t like confronting what the Bible has to say about us and our sinful nature. God’s Phrase is sort of a surgeon, and we’re the sufferers. It cuts us open earlier than it mends us again collectively. These incisions, even when they’re in the end meant to heal, can damage—particularly if we haven’t accepted our want for them.
That is, partially, why the Jews of Jesus’ day rejected Him as their Messiah. They wouldn’t obtain His teachings. They have been self-deceived, blinded by their very own non secular expertise. So when Jesus urged them to face the reality in order that they could possibly be free from sin’s bondage, they replied by retreating to their lineage, their religious pedigree: “We’re offspring of Abraham, and have by no means been enslaved to anybody. How is it that you simply say, ‘You’ll turn into free?’” (John 8:32–33).
We, as an alternative, should face the reality. However even then, we nonetheless need to come to the Reality. That’s Jesus’ invitation in John 14: “I’m the best way, and the reality, and the life. Nobody involves the Father besides by me” (v. 6). The one method we are able to cope with our sinful nature, from which our mendacity inevitably springs, is by coming to the Lord Jesus in repentance and religion. He forgives us our sin. He offers us a brand new nature with new wishes. He writes His regulation on our hearts, enabling us to stroll within the reality.
We’d do nicely to make the psalmist’s prayer our personal:
Educate me your method, O LORD,
that I’ll stroll in your reality;
unite my coronary heart to concern your identify. (Ps. 86:11)
This text was tailored from the sermon “The Reality About Mendacity” by Alistair Begg.
