DO NOT LIE TO EACH OTHER, SINCE YOU HAVE TAKEN OFF YOUR OLD SELF WITH ITS PRACTICES
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: “Lieg nie vir mekaar nie omdat julle die oue mens met sy werke afgelê het.”
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote to me and asked my opinion falsehoods and then also about the ‘white lie’. He writes as follows:
“I have for a very long time been wondering and contemplating about ‘white lies’.
What bothers me is how righteous people, or now how the woman, who hid the men, and then had to lie by saying they were not in the house. “
The section in the Word that the person is referring to is the following:
JOSHUA 2:1-5 1 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. 2 The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. 5 At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.”
There is also another good example where people also lied and our Lord did not hold it against them but contrary to that they to norm they seemed to have been rewarded.
EXODUS 1:15-21
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”
17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Here is how I see the situation and as I try to live it in my own life:
There is as far as my knowledge goes, not one section in the Word where a lie, be it white or whatever is spoken of in a good way.
Believe me also if I say to you the Word is full of examples where lie is something very wrong in the eyes of our Lord and as it is my habit to try and keep myself to two examples:
PROVERBS 6:16-19
16 There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.EPH 4:23-25
23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;
24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body.
What now?
In Exodes 1:15-21 our Lord rewards even something that He detests, namely a lie.
I see it this way:
The people in my examples at the beginning of this writing, have a couple of things in common.
They are in a hopeless situation because they helped their fellowman and now, to help them save their lives, they lied.
Naturally they could have trusted our Lord and He would have saved them but the poor circumstances in which they found themselves, was for them, oppressed and weak people, too much.
Do you remember what our Lord said on occasion to Abraham?
GEN 18:14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? …
The King James Version (KJV) reads as follows:
GEN 18:14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? … (NB: in various other versions the word ‘hard’ is replaced with ‘wonderful’ or ‘impossible’.)
What I am now going to say, I do not say to people who are deliberately wilful. I speak now to confessing Christians, who have truly taken up your cross and are following Jesus – People who are trying to the best of their abilities to be a witness for Jesus.
We are fallible people in a sinful world and sometimes we will find ourselves in difficult situations, where we rely on our Lord but because we are weak, we are sometimes going to lie. Please, I/you must not reduce the lie to a ‘white’ lie.
I/you have in a moment of weakness done something that our Lord says He despises.
I/you must truly confess my sin against our Lord. Luckily I know:
1 JOHN 1:9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Then I must where at all possible, to correct the filthy lie –
I say with intent ‘filthy lie’ because for a confessing Christian, as I am, there is no such thing as a ‘white’ lie.
I accepted Jesus Christ as my Redeemer and Saviour. I am a child of our Lord.
The fact that He, to put it that way, allowed me to get away with a hateful filthy lie, because I at that point in time was weak to fully place my trust in Him but my motive behind the lie was pure, not because it was a ‘white’ lie and ‘white’ lies are not sin but it is attributable to His wonderful great love for me. Such a great wonderful love, that He, who despises lies, surpasses the hateful filthy lie and saves me.
The King James Version (KJV) reads as follows:
PROVERBS 6:16-19
16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
So, let us strive, concerning this terrible filthy evil –
PSM 119:29 Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me and teach me your law.
PSM 119:30 I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I have set my heart on your laws.COL 3:9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
COL 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator
Greetings,
Sakkie