To Tell the Truth

 

Exodus 20:16 “You shall not testify falsely [that is, lie, withhold, or manipulate the truth] against your neighbor (any person). This is the ninth Commandment of God’s Moral Law to His people. Do we takes God's Commandments seriously?

 

The world today seems to have become desensitized to telling a lie in order to get whatever you want, a desired result or to hide the truth. In court, witnesses swear an oath to God with a hand on the Bible that they will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is based upon the ninth Commandment because God is the authority and the standard which we all are measured by. Proverbs 6:16-19 states, “These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, A false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.”  

 

Proverbs 15:8-9 explains that all sin is evil defilement and pollution, stating “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but He loves him who follows righteousness. To “lie” is defined as to utter falsehood with an intention to deceive, or with an immoral design; an intentional violation of truth. To exhibit a false representation; to say or do that which deceives another, when they have a right to know the truth, or when morality requires a just representation. Lying makes the list of the top things that God hates, yet how much do we think about this fact?                     

 

The Lord Jesus states it simply in Matthew 5:37, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” Yes, the “evil one” is the adversary that lied to our original parents in the Garden of Eden and brought sin and death into this world. The Apostle Paul describes those that acquiesce as dead in trespasses and sins, in which they walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. 

 

Jesus Christ, who died for the sins of the world had a harsh rebuke for the sons and daughters of disobedience in John 8:44 declaring, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” Why do we take lying so lightly? The Prophet in Isaiah 59:1-4 proclaims, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity. No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.”

                                                                                                                                                

The Apostle Paul writes to the born-again Christian Believer in Colossians 3:8-11 “But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” Paul speaks to the body of Christ, the church, in Ephesians 4:11-15 “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.” 

 

The children of God are sanctified by the truth of God’s Truth found in His holy Word, in sacred Scripture of the Bible. To tell the truth, that is exactly what we need.

 

In Christ, Brian