Jerry C. Brewer
The world is self-centered. That was Eve’s problem when the serpent tempted her in Eden and told her, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). That has remained man’s great bane through the ages and it is diametrically opposed to the essence of Christianity. Jesus told His disciples that self denial is a requisite to follow Him: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).
Man’s egocentrism is expressed in the modern statement, “Attend the church of your choice.” That expression cannot be found in The Bible. It came from men who seek to dethrone God. Lying, unrighteous anger, evil speaking, and theft are associated with man’s obsession of self. Paul zeroed in on lying when he wrote the following to the Ephesians: “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25).
Paul contrasted their former lives with their present lives in Christ.
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness (Eph. 4:17-19).
They walked in their vanity of their mind which resulted in,
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A darkened understanding
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Thus they were alienated from the life of God through ignorance (Hosea 4:6)
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Their alienation through ignorance resulted from a hardness of heart, ie. “past feeling” (1 Tim. 4:1-2)
Paul indicates that they had become corrupt in their deceitful lusts—not because they were born that way (a so-called “sinful nature”) but through habit brought on by constant practice. He indicates that they can re-sensitize themselves to righteousness by casting off the old man of sin and putting on the new man of righteousness:
But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 20-24).
Lying
Jesus told some Jews who did not believe Him that Satan, the father of lies and liars, was their father.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it (John 8:45).
It was Satan’s lie and Eve’s belief of it that ruined the human race (Gen. 3:4). It is not only a sin to lie, but it is also a sin to believe a lie. The young prophet who was sent to cry against Jereboam’s altar learned that lesson by losing his life (1 Kings 13:1-24).
There is no such thing as a “little white lie.” Abram told the partial truth—“a little white lie”—to Pharaoh in Genesis 12:10-20 when he introduced his wife Sarai as his “sister.” Although Abram told the truth about their kinship, he did not tell the complete truth. He told a “little white lie.” A lie is a lie in the sight of God. God has no degrees of lying, and when I was very young my father, Clyde Brewer, told me that “A man who will lie to you, will steal from you.”
The Bible plainly sets forth the ultimate end of all liars. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8); “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev. 22:15).
Speaking the Truth
Earlier in Ephesians 4, Paul had enjoined speaking the truth in love. “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:15). Some brethren believe this means the “soft-pedal” art of getting the message across in such an easy style that the hearer doesn’t realize it—a sort of anesthetic preaching. But the apostles were not so trained to preach anesthesia. Peter’s sermon on Pentecost went straight to the point and charged his hearers to be the murders of Jesus Christ. His sermon pricked their hearts, so much that they asked, “What will we do?”
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? (Acts 2:36-38).
Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 was so caustic to the Jews that “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth…And cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord…And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul (Acts 7:54, 57-58).
Speaking truth in love does not mean watering down and soft-soaping the truth to such an extent that the preacher will allow his hearers to die in disobedience and go to hell, rather than saying anything to nettle their feelings or stir their consciences. Peter preached a sermon on Pentecost that “pricked their hearts” and their guilty consciences prompted them to ask, “What shall we do!” In Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, his preaching had the same results—they were “cut to the heart” but their consciences were hardened and killed him. Speaking the truth in love means loving the truth above all things. One who loves the truth does not have to try to preach it in love.
Paul refers to all dealings with our fellow man, whether preaching the Gospel of dealing in very day temporal affairs. We must not only refrain from lying, but we must tell the unvarnished truth in everything we do.
