Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. The founder and perfecter of our faith. Among seven things God hates, the writer of Proverbs lists lying twice. That's top billing for a sin we all commit. To win in the race of life requires telling the truth.
Stay with us to find out why lying is so prevalent and so destructive. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, is it a lie to refrain from telling the whole truth when doing so might cause offense to a fellow believer? Dave, you've asked a very difficult question, and I want to say this, that God gives us wisdom in those circumstances.
Sometimes some one does not deserve the whole truth, and of course If someone is asked a particular question, you don't necessarily have to tell them everything that you know about it. But here's the thing. Lies are intended to deceive. And that's why it's so important that we be truth Tellers. and the Scripture says very clearly that it is God who is the source of all truth, and, if I might add, Satan, is the source of all lies.
Speaking the truth in love. is very important. I've written a book entitled Why Holiness Matters. This is a resource we're making available for you and this is one of the last days that we'll have that opportunity to do so. At the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be giving you some contact info.
For now, let us listen. Mm-hmm. You can also lie by what you do. Let's take for an example the misrepresentation that took place in Acts chapter 5: the story of Ananias and Sapphira. We read this in our devotions at home last night with the children, and my children were really quite.
taken aback by the fact that the text doesn't say that they lied. What happened is in chapter 4, verse 36, Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth. Owned a tract of land, sold it, brought the money, laid it at the apostles' feet. Chapter 5 tells the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who also sold a property. They did the same thing, they kept back part of the price.
Somebody says, Well, wasn't that all right? Maybe they had financial need. Of course, it was all right. Peter says in verse 3. Or rather, verse 4: While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?
After it was sold, was it not under your control? You can do anything you want with it, you could have kept all the money. What did Ananias and Sapphira do that was wrong? The answer is, they took money and they laid it at the apostles' feet, pretending that they were giving all that they had received from the land. just like Barnabas had done.
That's what was so sinful. If they'd have given a part of it and said, now this is only a part of it because we need money, Peter said, You have that right. He says, It was yours even after you sold it, it remained your own. But the problem is, you put the best face on it. You wanted to give the impression that you were spiritual, you wanted to give the impression that you were generous.
And, Sapphira, you wanted to be elected to the woman's society so everyone would think that you were godly. And because of that pretense, God says it's game over. You're dead. You'd say, well, why doesn't God do that today? I think God was giving an object lesson to the church.
What he was doing at the beginning of the church was to say that I hate pretense, I hate hypocrisy, I hate lying, and because these people agreed in their heart to lie through pretense, I will use them as an object lesson. And so Ananias dies, Sapphira dies, both of them are wiped out, and Peter says to them, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie? to the Holy Spirit. Remember, John chapter 8 says that Satan is a liar and the father of lies. His technique is lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.
You know that sometimes wicked spirits actually speak through the mouths of people. Especially when they are being dealt with, if a person is demonized because of some reason, perhaps dabbling in the occult. And one of the things that you know about wicked spirits is the only time you can believe them is when they have just told you that they have just been lying. They are liars. It is almost impossible for a demon to tell the truth.
He would rather say something very evasive and general rather than telling the truth. He hates truths. And so Peter says, Ananias, why did Satan fill your heart? He put it into your heart to lie. You'd have said Ananias and Sapphira that day that you were eating breakfast and you were discussing this among yourselves, Satan was in your kitchen and he was passing this idea off into your minds.
They wouldn't have believed it. They'd have said, This is what we agreed to do to make ourselves look good. Satan's great desire is to take thoughts and to pass them off into our minds and to get us to believe that they are ours and not his. It was motivated by pride, this lie was. It was suggested by the devil, but it was directed against God.
Peter says, You have not lied to man. You have lied to God because He is the one that makes the rules. You are a liar and God hates Liars. Oh, there's so much more that can be said, but we must hurry on. We can break the commandment by what we say, we can break the commandment by what we do.
Also, we can also break this commandment by what we say. And Do. when you put the two together. For that, turn with me to the book of 1 John for just a moment. You remember, it occurs.
Near the end of the New Testament, just a couple of pages before the book of Revelation. First John. Here he says that you can be a liar because you say one thing and you do another. I'm thinking of chapter 1, verse 6 of 1 John. If we say that we have fellowship with him.
And yet walk in the darkness. We lie. and do not practice the truth. What he's saying is that what comes out of our mouth is inconsistent with our life. We say, I walk in the light.
We stand up and we give testimonies and say, you know, it's wonderful to walk with the Lord and to have fellowship with Him and all that. And yet there are hidden areas of darkness in our life. If you can think of our lives as a house, and every house has several different rooms, and every one of these rooms represents a different area of our life. One room represents our business life, the other room represents our married life, the other room represents our academic life, the other room represents the financial part of our life. And we have all of these different rooms within us.
And if there is darkness there because there is something that we have not surrendered to God, the text says we lie and we do not do the truth. And remember what God says in Proverbs: These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him, and twice lying is mentioned. God hates it because God is truth. Satan loves it. Because he is a lie.
and the father of lies.
So uh it's possible to lie by what you say. And by what you do, combining the two and putting them together. Look at another lie that John talks about. This is in the same book, chapter 4. Verse 20.
Another kind of lie that he speaks about. If someone says, I love God. And he hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has. not saying.
That's interesting. Here's somebody who stands up in church and sings, My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine. For thee, all the follies of sin I resign. But he has resentment against his brother. The text says If someone says, I love God, and yet he hates his brother.
He's a liar. You know, you read it and you say, well, why is that the case? And the rationale that is given is that it is easier to love someone whom you can see and you can serve. Than it is to love God who is unseen. That's what he says.
But you say, I have resentment in my heart towards my brother. If you have resentment in your heart towards your brother or towards your sister, in effect, also, by the way, you have resentment against God. There's a very quick transfer there because there are people who say that because it was because of God that my parents abused me, or why did God allow this to happen to me? And it's very easy for us as human beings to take hatred against a person and then end up directing that hatred against God. And so he says that it is not possible to say, I love God and yet hate my brother without lying.
You say, well, I don't agree with that.
Well, if you don't, then you are calling God a liar. Because the text says they can't be done.
Now you see. What the Lord is saying to us is. But he desires that we have, and the key word here is. Integrity. Integrity.
That's a good word. And God knows we need a lot of it. We have so many people today who, when you speak to to them in church, they appear as if All is well. But actually, in their lives, they're building up a whole network of deception and deceit. If only the truth were known, they lack.
Integrity, honesty, the ring of transparency and truthfulness. Remember that earthquake? I wouldn't expect you necessarily to remember when it happened, because it happened in the year 1906. But you remember that earthquake that you've read about that took place in San Francisco on April 18th, 1906? As a result of that earthquake, 700 people died, 300,000 were left homeless, 28,000 buildings were destroyed.
Very interesting. An architect said That the reason that the toll was so great was not because of the earthquake necessarily being that large. But he attributed the devastation At least a large part of the devastation to what he called dishonest mortar. Dishonest mortar. The builders of San Francisco had used a lot of cheap sand mixed in with not enough expensive limestone.
They did that in order to conserve, in order to make some money on the deal. Just like builders sometimes do today when they are constructing buildings with inferior. Materials. And what happened was that dishonest mortar, though it was hidden for a long time, when the earthquake came, it was revealed that many of those buildings were not built well, and that's why the devastation was so great.
Now I thought to myself, you know, there are a lot of lives that are being built on dishonest mortar. Dishonest martyr. Jesus once told a story. He said that those who build their life on the sand, they may have a beautiful house with the right number of windows, and it may be a very impressive structure. It looks just as beautiful, if not more so, than the person who builds his house upon the rock.
And so you can't tell the difference on a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon in Chicago. But then Jesus said, When the storm comes and the judgment begins to come, and you begin to have problems, and the wind begins to blow, and the hail begins, and you have lightning and thunder and all that, suddenly the house that is built upon the rock stands, and the one that is built upon the sand collapses, collapses because of dishonest. Mortar. You know, there have been people. whose lives have appeared to be so normal, so godly, so neat, who have built an entire network of secrecy in terms of the hiddenness of what they have done, all of which has been built upon deceit.
It's amazing to see this happen. Because our hearts are naturally Deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, the Bible says, who can know it? And God says, I hate a lie. I hate a lie. And the time is coming when Antichrist comes, when the scripture says men and women are going to believe the lie.
God will send them a strong delusion that they might believe the lie. Right now in Sunday school is I teach the New Age movement. It's really based on An incredible number of subtle Lies. But there are some lives that are based on lies too. Do you remember David?
David tried to cover his sin. He went to a great deal of trouble to try to do that. He brought Uriah back from the battle. He tried to get Uriah drunk. He then eventually ended up killing Uriah so that it would look as if Bathsheba just became his wife and everything was fine and that there was nothing wrong with their relationship, cover upon cover upon cover.
You've heard me say that it's rather ironic that the man who went to such great lengths to cover his sin is almost today famous for it. Everybody knows that David was an adulterer. But it's very interesting that when he began to cry up to God in Psalm 51, he says, Thou desirest not sacrifice. But also he said in Psalm 51: Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest. and be declared righteous when thou judgest.
David says, God, you are a God of truthfulness, of justice, of righteousness, of transparency, and I am confessing that the sin was against you. Interestingly, in Romans chapter 3, Paul picks up that verse and he adds the words: Let God be true and every man a liar. Every man a liar.
Now if you're here today and do not realize the deception that is in your own heart. You are really making God a liar. You're making God a liar. Because the Bible says that each of us is born with a deceptive nature. Each of us has a great dose of untruthfulness because a drop of Satan's rebellion, a drop of his desire to lie, has fallen upon every single human heart.
But what God says to us today is that I can forgive that. I can forgive that. If you're a Christian and there is deception in your life, it is very, very important that that gets taken care of to the extent that it can be. Even if it means writing a letter to a university that you graduated from, if it means taking something back, if it means some untruth that you told to someone where you misled them, if it's some business deal where there has been some dishonest mortar, you have that responsibility before God because God hates lying. If you're not a Christian, your first responsibility is not to worry about all of the deceptions in your life, except insofar that they are a reminder of the fact that you desperately need to be forgiven and to be cleansed by God and to be received in His presence.
And the good news is that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, His death was a sacrifice for sin. He died in our place whereby we could be forgiven and cleansed, and God can make us one of His own and actually give us a nature, a new nature that hates deception. Because that new nature does, because it is patterned after Jesus Christ. And the reason that you ought to flee to the cross with such tremendous speed. Figuratively speaking, it is because the Bible says this in Revelation chapter 21, verse 8.
It says, outside of the holy city, after a beautiful description of the new Jerusalem. It says, Outside of the holy city are sorcerers, deceivers, and all. Liars. All liars. Interestingly, in that list of people outside of the holy city, it doesn't say all sorcerers, though that may be implied.
But it lists sorcery and murderers, and then it says all liars. Why? God says, I hate. Abomination. and lying.
God hates it. Because he's a God of truth. Whatever the dishonest mortar is in your life, will you confess it and forsake it and expose yourself to God, whatever the cost? God says, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Let's pray.
Oh Father, today we want to thank you that Jesus is a friend of sinners because we know that there exists within the natural, unconverted, human heart. An incredible deception. Tendency to lying, deceit, slander. It's all there. We thank you that you can not only forgive us for that.
But we rejoice also that you can make us new people. people who love righteousness and hate iniquity. And we pray today for that believer who knows right well what they ought to make right. As the Spirit of God has pointed it out to them, we ask that you'll give them the grace to do it no matter how humiliating it is, no matter how difficult it is. We pray that you'll give them the ability to do whatever is necessary to be fully right with you and man.
And for the people who do not know you as Savior. They've never trusted you, and they too understand that they are deceitful. Help them to see that their first step. To realize that Jesus Christ's death was for them and to believe on Christ, to acknowledge their sin. And then say, Lord Jesus, I trust you completely and totally.
May they make that choice to day, For your name's sake we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
Okay.
Well, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. Frequently it is said that Truth hurts, but I have to tell you this. Lies hurt much more. We should be truth-tellers. and we're living in a day and age where deceit and lying is so common.
I've written a book entitled Why Holiness Matters, and you've heard me say this before. I wrote it because I do believe that holiness matters. And this is the last week that we are making this resource available for you. And we're doing that because we believe very deeply that God expects us to work toward holiness, of course, with His help and intervention, but at the same time we should not be living careless lives that oftentimes imbibe the values of the world. For a gift of any amount this resource can be yours.
Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer dot com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-258-888-8. 218 ninety three thirty seven. From my heart to yours today, thank you so much for supporting this ministry thank you so much for your prayers because, as you've heard me say, together we're making a difference.
Remember, you can go right now to rtwoffer.com. or pick up the phone and call us at one eight eight eight two one eight 9337. Thank you so much for standing with us. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Every year we celebrate Good Friday.
And many Christians wonder what happened to Jesus after he died. Jennifer is a regular running-to-win listener who asks, During Christ's three days in the tomb, did he descend below the earth? What was happening at that time?
Well, Jennifer, I'm going to give you a quick answer to your question, a very good question, by the way, and that is that if Jesus did go to hell. after he died on the cross he wasn't there for very long. Because he said to the thief to day, you will be with me in paradise. There's some evidence that perhaps Jesus did descend into Hades. You know, the Bible says, Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol.
And there's a debate as to whether or not that just means the grave. Or whether or not it means something more than the grave. Shell does often mean more than the grave. it means some kind of existence in the nether world. It's possible that Jesus was there for a time, But if he was As I mentioned, it wasn't for long.
because he ended up seeing the thief in Paradise. But here's the bottom line. Whether or not Jesus descended into Hades or Sheol is a matter of dispute but one thing is certain He did not purchase our redemption there. And there are some false teachers on television today who say that Jesus went to hell and he bore our hell in hell. He bore our hill.
On the cross And so please keep that in mind. That's where redemption happened. And all that we can do is to simply say that perhaps we don't know. Whether Jesus went to Hades, but one thing is sure. He did end up that very day.
with the father, and with the thief Thank you, Jennifer, for your question. Thank you, doctor Lutzer, for that thoughtful answer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, you can by going to our website at rtwoffer dot com and clicking on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us with the question at one, eight eight eight two one eight ninety three thirty seven. That's one eight eight eight two one eight ninety three thirty seven. You can write to us at Running2Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.
Running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. There's something in all of us that wants what someone else has: a bigger house, a nicer car, a higher income. We never seem to have enough, and many of us want it all. But we can't carry our belongings across the finish line. No, U-Haul will follow your hearse.
Coveting, that's what God addressed in the last of the Ten Commandments.
Next time on Running to Win, we turn to that last commandment and learn about the sin nobody sees. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
