“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 18:21
Ready? The biggest problem facing humanity is sin and the central sin isn’t sexual, or theft, or murder (sinful as those certainly are). The central sin is exchanging the truth for a lie (Romans 1:18).
Man is, in sin, a born liar and lies are the scourge of life. We are “truth suppressors” – first and foremost by claiming that nature doesn’t clearly reveal the glory of God, but is some kind of incredible cosmic accident. This is a colossal lie at the heart of life and leads to mankind refusing to acknowledge God, worship Him and give Him thanks. All of this is the whole purpose for which we were created. Fyodor Dostoevsky once remarked that man is “monstrously ungrateful…an ungrateful biped.” This is the natural course of events because man is lying all the time about God, himself and reality and, like all liars, can’t get his way and then, consequently, grumbles and complains.
Thus, the Bible says that humanity exchanges the truth for a lie (Romans 1:23) and becomes futile in their thinking. The truth is that God created the world and everything in it. The truth is that God and God alone is the source of life and truth. The lie is anything else. The lie is when we replace God’s word as the center of prediction and replace it with our own minds and vain reasonings. When we reject God’s Word as authoritative over all of life, we eject ourselves from truth.
It’s rather common to think that our real problems are “out there” in the world. The real danger is a disease, or poverty, or crime, or something that happens to us. Well, though those things are, in fact, terrible, but they’re all caused by, or a result of, sin. And the root of sin is in the flesh – our flesh, yours and mine. The answer to the problem, therefore, isn’t a government program, a raise, or winning the lottery. The answer to sin is the cross of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.
Well, if the root of all misery and woe is sin, the root of sin is deception. The Devil, Jesus said in John 8:44, is a liar and was one from the beginning. The temptation of Adam and Even in the garden, just like that of our Lord in the wilderness was through lies both subtle and brazen. This, we should know inside and out. We should forever be on guard against the attacks but we’re often already deluded and, be sure, playing with fire.
The Devil doesn’t work through brute force. Men – whether criminals or government tyrants – will do that once the sin and lie has gone deep enough. The serpent works through deceit…he’s the tempter, the seducer, the accuser, the complainer, the mocker and scoffer. He starts small and builds. He attacks you where your flesh is weak – at your hungers and thirsts, your fears, or your wounded pride. And note that he’s usually right at the start. You are hungry or you have reason to feel what you do. But then he turns it. Then he says, let’s solve the problem without God, without the cross. Remember, all you need to know about life is this great antithesis. The Devil shows us the forbidden fruit and says, “take…eat.” But Christ comes and says, “this is my body…take…and eat.” The Devil says, “eat…you surely won’t die…you deserve to live.” Jesus Christ says, “take and eat of my body, given as a sacrifice for you, because you deserve death and judgment.”
The Devil promises life through sin; God offers life through the cross.
The Devil’s lie is that you aren’t going to be safe with God or that His prohibitions are unfair rather than good. Thus, you can’t trust God. That’s the bottom of it, friends, which is why lies are so dangerous and damaging.
Sin, in another way of seeing it, is the act of lying about God. This has many dimensions in a sin-sick world and when sin doesn’t lie about God, it will lie about reality, or obscure the truth, or lie about others. Public schools lie every day to millions of children, telling them that life is random – an accident of chance – and that God has no place in public life. Politicians lie too. Not just about a policy, but a grander one still. They accept and propagate the lie that God isn’t God over civil affairs and that we can arrive at peace with each other without Him, on our own terms, through our own philosophies.
We often decry how much deceit we see around us but refuse to acknowledge the source of the problem. Trying to solve the problems of the world without Jesus Christ is like trying to keep the Titanic afloat with a spoon, scooping up the rising water and throwing it overboard.
Imagine a world where no one lied.
Imagine a world where there were no euphemisms to hide the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Imagine a world where – at least in our church – no one ever spoke ill of you, nor you of another – but only that which was edifying and meant in love.
To think of this helps us to see danger and damage of falsehood and gossip as well as the transcendent blessings that pour forth from Godly speech. This is no small subject. The fact that we don’t consider false speech, gossip, “spin”, euphemisms, manipulative flattery and politics as dangerous evils is proof that the Devil is already having his way with us. We’re Eve chatting away with him in the garden, thinking we’re okay. It’s by God’s grace that we haven’t already been sifted like wheat! Listen to what Scripture has to say on the subject.
(Ephesians 4:25) “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.”
“There is nothing reliable in what they say,” Psalm 5:9.
“They speak falsehood to one another; with flattering lips and with a double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips…who have said, ‘with our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own; who is lord over us?” Psalm 12:2-4.
“Your tongue devises destruction, Like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking what is right.” Psalm 52:2-5
Romans 3:13-14 picks this up…”Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of bitterness and cursing…”
Isaiah 6:5 “And I said, ‘woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
(Proverbs 7:21) “With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.” Sin is seductive and the Devil is a beautiful liar.
(Proverbs 6:12-13) “A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing DISCORD…” A Christian should speak plainly and truthfully. Have you seen the so-called “user agreements” we have to sign/check for everything these days? Sinful men and women scoff at “living under the Bible” but then they sign agreements longer than the Pentateuch. They bristle that “they don’t need a book to tell them what to do and how to live” but live under a thousand legal codes, each trying to stem the tide of one lie or another. The I.R.S code alone is so vast and confusing that whole professions of men and women devote their lives, and earn their livings, interpreting and trying to apply them.
(Proverbs 6:16-19) “there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows DISCORD among brothers.” Once again we see that discord comes from lies.
“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Proverbs 12:18
“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8,9)
On the day of judgement, people will give account for every careless word they speak. (Matthew 12:36)
“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord”. (Proverbs 12:22)
“The devil is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
“An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.” (Proverbs 17:4)
“There’s gold and an abundance of costly stones, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15)
“A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.” (Proverbs 29:11)
“How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” (James 3:5)
Raymond Ortlund said this: “Much of the strife in our families and offices and dorms and churches and nations is because of foolish words. But we often underestimate the importance of our words. Adultery, for example, is perceived in most Bible-believing churches as a serious sin. And it is. But I’ve never seen adultery send a whole church into meltdown. Gossip, by contrast, is often perceived as a little sin. But it destroys churches. Gossip can even be perceived as some kind of need: ‘I have to let all this out.’ As Americans, we do have the right of free speech. In our political culture we have the right – if it’s a right, nobody can stop us – to blurt out whatever we feel. But when we become Christians, we enter a new culture where we surrender that right. We stop blurting out whatever we feel. We bring our words under the judgement of God’s word.
“Do you know how many people it takes to split a church? Not half the congregation. Just two. One to start spreading the fiery negativity, and another not to confront that behavior as the sin that it is.”
Why are words important? Why truth? Because God communicates to us through His word and His word is true. As sons of God, we should imitate our Father. “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” (Deuteronomy 32:46-47)
(Joshua 1:7-9) Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
(John 14:15,23, 24) “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…if anyone loves me, he will keep my word…Whoever does not love me does not keep my words…And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”
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