Lord's Day 42 (8th Word) says that squandering our wealth is a sin. Well, there is no worse squanderer than a liar. The amount of wealth he squanders is beyond calculating. It does not take long till everything that a liar has, is gone.  Then they become desperate: They lie because they have nothing to lose -- like the devil who tries to take down as many as he can in the little time he has.

            Don't squander your most precious asset, your own life. Rather, love the truth. Invest in it and increase your life.

God calls us to protect our lives.

            1. Lies take it away

            2. Truth makes it grow.

1. Lies take our lives away.

            Our Lord's Day calls lies and deceit the devil's own work. God forbids us to lie because he doesn't want us to do the devil's dirty work. For you see, liars and deceivers are not free. They are the toilet cleaners, the gutter sweepers, the lackeys and slaves of Satan. People who tell lies and practice deceit are doing Satan's dirty work for him. They make life for Satan easy. They advance his purpose against God. And they gain nothing. Lies achieve nothing worthwhile. Liars are losers. It sucks your life away.

            Jesus said to the Jews of his day, "You are of your father the Devil.  He was a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies." Jesus directly connects Satan's plan to kill with the manner he followed: He told lies. Lies take life away. Anyone who practices the devil's works will lose his life, and often diminishes the life of others.

            The Biblical examples that illustrate this glare forth from Bible history. In the beginning, Satan had no power over the earth, becuase it was good, only good. But he appeared to Eve in the form of a serpent in order to express in a crafty way, a lie. And Eve believe Satan. Thus began Satan's power on earth. With the appearance of a lie and its acceptance on the earth, death came.  Lies take life away. Eve accepted a lie, and the seed of death immediately sprung up within her. Eventually she died, and so did Adam.

            It's an amazing thing to discover how common a part of the Bible history lies and deceit is. You can hardly turn a page without reading about someone telling a lie or practising deceit. It is one of the main forces of pain and suffering, of illness and death, of trouble and violation, in the Bible narrative. It is one of the main reasons why the OT cries out for a Saviour.  We needed a good man to show us the meaning of integrity, truthfulness and fair dealings with one's fellow man.

            Just think about the power of falsehood and deception in the book of Genesis. I had challenged the congregation I served to count up the number of instances in the book of Genesis lies and deception occurred. I suggested that there were at least 11 cases. Several poeple gave me lists for Genesis: they tallied to 32! I learned that falsehood is one of the most powerful forces driving the evil winds of salvation history, one of the most important reasons why we needed someone to set us free from slavery to Satan. We need someone to give us back all the life we had lost because we had told so many lies, and practised so much deceit.

            Satan's work is not just telling outright lies. He practices every form of deceit, like half-truths. That is what Abraham told when he was afraid to tell Pharaoh that the beautiful woman with him was his wife. He resorted to a half-truth. He told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister. It was half true for they shared one father (though different mothers) so Sarah was his sister, but she was also his wife. For his deceit, Abraham lost his wife for a time; he lost his honour when his deceit was exposed; and it surely put stress on their marriage too, for falseness in marriage always bears evil fruit in later years of marriage.

            But there are many forms to deciet: like exaggeration.  That is what the spies did when they came back from their mission to spy out the promised land. They said,

We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. Numbers 13:33

They did Satan's dirty work for him. They took away the hearts of the people to act in faith. A little exaggeration created a whole generation of unbelief, and the consequence was that God could not let them enter the promised land. They had to die, one by one, in the wilderness.

            It often happens that influential members of the congregation will urge people against acting in faith, and often they will bolster their case against faithfulness by exaggerating the forces that are lined up against us.  It is the work of the devil, doing his dirty work to weaken our courage and to drive us farther away from God.

            Satan's dirty work can include cleverly present evidence to make a person draw the wrong conclusion. That is what Joseph's brothers did: They brought to their father Jacob Joseph's new coat torn and blood stained. They had torn it with their own hands and had killed a sheep for blood to stain the coat. And they tricked their father with evidence to draw the wrong conclusion.

            As a result, they were haunted with the fear of being found out, and hounded by their consciences for the incredibly evil thing they had done. They lost a great deal more than they had gained in order to do Satan's dirty work, presenting the truth in a false light. How often don't you try to do the same?

            Our LD identifies gossip and slander as the work of the devil. Absalom spoke ill of his father to the people, making them think David did not care about them. He indicated that if he were king, he would attend to them carefully. But when he was with David, he pretended to be a loyal son.  It was part of his conspiracy. He lost a great deal more than he gained. He lost a meaningful relation with his father, he plunged the land into civil war, and in the end, he lost his life.

            Liars are losers. They are Satan's lackeys. They do his dirty work. Every time we tell a lie and practice deceit, Satan gains a little more power at our expense. He sees love shattered, human relations broken, distrust and dishonour multiply, gossip and slander spread. These are the forces in the Kingdom of Satan.

            And when we begin to practice dishonesty, it creeps into our relationship with God too. Nothing gives Satan more pleasure. It is what the rebellion is all about: to get people to stop giving glory to God. David tried to cover up his sins before God and refused to talk about it in his prayers (Ps 32:5). Jesus told parables about people who exaggerated their own goodness in their prayers.  Isaiah complains about people trying to trick God into thinking they worshipped by giving to him their things but not their hearts (Ps 50:8, Isaiah 1:11).

            And this is a serious problem for us because we are by nature liars and deceivers. Jeremiah said, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure."(17:9) Paul says, "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." (Romans 3:13) We are inclined to bargain away our friends, the people whom we respect, the people who love us, even our own life, for insane reasons: to cover up some evil we have done, perhaps just for the pleasure we get by causing someone pain with our words, or perhaps because we want something they have. We use our words to deceive, and we lose so much. Liars are losers.

2. Truth makes our Life Grow.

            Jesus Christ has freed us from the power of deceit and lies. Though we are still inclined to it, we can fight and overcome it. We need, however, to start being truthful, and the first step is painful. Truth for us begins by acknowledging: "I am a sinner." It is not an excuse for the lies we have told, nor an excuse to continue.  The first part of the catechism speaks of our sin and misery. There is comfort only for those who feel misery for their sin, who hate their inclination to deceive.

            This lesser truth leads us to the greater truth: Jesus Christ. The Great Truth, Jesus Christ, cuts through all the half truths, exaggerations, hypocrisy, and gives us the courage to approach God and say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

            Paul knew this truth well. He called himself the worst of sinners. He did not say that as a sort of rhetorical device. He really meant it. He had never known a worse sinner than himself. When he read the story of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Able, of Saul and David, of David and Bathsheba, of the Jewish leaders and Jesus - then he would not look down on any of them.  He was worse than any of them. That truth ruled in his heart. And it was true for him.

            But here is something that is true for me. I am the worst of sinners.  David felt the same way: "I know my sins; My sins are always before me." He didn't think of others as sinners. He could not possibly know the deceitful way others thought. But he knew his own heart, and he thought, "How can anyone be as wicked in his thinking as I."

            That is the effect of Jesus Christ. When the light of the Bible shines on the darkness of our hearts, we condemn, not other people, but ourselves:

                        This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us.    1 John 3:19-20a

            But the amazing thing is that when we condemn ourselves for being so often false, and beg God for his grace, then he makes us members of Jesus Christ, allies in the cause of truth. Acknowledging our sinfulness brings us into the fellowship of truthfulness. He sets us free from the dominion of the evil one, and gives us power to overcome him.

            Abraham and Joseph's brothers, though they committed lies and practised deceit, became fathers of the faith, because they admitted this first great truth. They repented of their sins and sought God's grace. They became partners of the Truth.

            Let us not barter our lives away by taking refuge in the poor fortress of lies, deceit, exaggerations, gossip or slander. Let us be right in Jesus Christ and find that by grace we gain entrance into the new paradise where we  might for the first time be completely free of the scandal of dishonesty to walk in the pure light of truthfulness. Let us make that light shine more now by being truthful in our relationship with one another and with God.

Amen

Rev. Paul Aasman, B.A., M.Div. is the Pastor of the Canadian Reformed Church at Grand Valley, ON