FROM THE PASTOR’S HEART
OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
I was amazed when I read that researchers have found that 60% of people can’t go for 10 minutes without lying. Of course, they did not tell about the other 40% percent of the people, but it would be of interest if they could tell, for the prophet Jeremiah seems to think that we are all deceivers. He says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). And we might need to agree because the researchers have also found that children begin to lie by the age of four. Is it that they learn how to lie from their parents?
Lying is pervasive in some cultures as evidenced in the following account. I have told my story a few times of being in a certain country as a salesman before the current collection systems and showing up at the doorsteps to collect payments for the goods credited. Several times, as I showed up at the doors to collect what was owed for the products that I had left on credit, it was common as I rang the doorbells for a child to come to the door to say, “Mommy ain’t here.” Sometimes I would pause a little before turning away because I could see the moms at the windows, behind the curtains peeking. Then, not wanting to embarrass the children, I would say, “Okay, I will come back when your mom returns.”
One colleague who was part of our sales team gave this account as he went to make a collection. He said that a child came to the door with the same excuse, “Mom ain’t here.” But the child had the door wide open, and my friend noticed a pair of feet sticking out from under the bed, which was high. His response was not as kind as mine, for as he told, he said to the child, “Tell your mom, the next time she is going out, she is to take her feet with her.”
We do not know if my colleague was just trying to be funny or exaggerating, but that is that lying seems to be easy for so many. Just imagine the children of that country and generation growing up with the legacy of lying? It causes me to think of the harsh comment of the apostle Paul as he instructed the young Titus on how he should deal with the people of Crete, “One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. (Titus 1:12, 13 NKJV).
We might look down on Crete and people of other countries and talk of their deceptive behaviors, but in reflecting on our contemporary culture here in the United States of America, we remind ourselves that lying seems to be accepted as normative. In fact, at the start of his presidency, former President Trump was being called “a liar” after he uttered a few sentences. By the close of his four years, those calculating said he told more than 30,373 lies, and his lying was accepted as normal.
Articles and books have been written on “Trump versus the truth,” “Trump and the Legacy of Lies,” “The truth behind Trump need to lie,” et cetera. While many have called the former president “an unapologetic liar,” Trump called himself “the Most Honest Human Being Perhaps That God Ever Created.” Based on the Big Lie, Mr. Trump claims that he won the 2020 election, and it was stolen from him and given to President Biden.
I am not trying to play God in judging all persons, countries, and cultures that I have named above that I have cited for lying, but I have brought the reflection because, in my view, lying is being so popularized that too many in our contemporary world are taking it for granted. “This is how we are,” they are saying.
The greatest problem, of course, is not that lies are being told to others, but that lies are being told to ourselves. In this case, the whole fabric of our relationships is being sown with distrust and destruction, and our minds and our characters are being wasted. Just think of the brokenness that is brought into many marital relationships because spouses lie so much to one another. Just think of what our children are suffering because of their lying parents. Lying is not good.
The Tenth commandment says, “You shall not lie.” (Thou shalt not bear false witness…) I am not taking time to write more on the multiple consequences of lying but sharing a reflection that came in my devotional reading on the consequence of lying to two individuals who belonged to the early Christian church. Their story is reported in Acts 5. It says:
From the stern punishment meted out to those perjurers, God would have us learn how deep His hatred and contempt is for all hypocrisy and deception. In pretending that they had given all, Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, and, as a result, they lost this life and the life that is to come. The same God who punished them condemns all falsehood, then and now. Lying lips are an abomination to Him. He declares that “there shall, in no wise enter into the Holy City… anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.” Revelation 21:27. Let truth-telling be held with no loose hand or uncertain grasp. Let it become a part of life. Playing fast and loose with the truth, and dissembling to suit one’s own selfish plans, means a shipwreck of faith. “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.” Ephesians 6:14. He who utters untruths sells his soul in a cheap market. His falsehoods may seem to serve in emergencies; he may thus seem to make business advancements that he could not gain by fair dealing, but he finally reaches the place where he can trust no one. Himself a falsifier, he has no confidence in the word of others. (AA 75.3, emphasis mine).
I could not say what is stated better in the above. I have felt the pain of being lied upon. But compared with what I read about the lies told about Jesus, my pain has been minuscule. However, I can say that lies can take a person to the cross. Lying brings a curse. Lying prepares the mind for another lie, and another, until we will find that we are caught up in the Big Lie, whatever that will be. The last day phenomenon is that Satan, “the father of lies,” will be using lies to deceive the whole world because he knows he has a short time to ply his trade of lying (cf. Revelation 12:9).
So, my encouragement is to be careful. Be careful if you are ever tempted to listen to lies or tell lies. Keep your minds clear from lying, for “the curse causeless shall not come.” (Proverbs 26:2).
