Sermon Series: “Rule Your Mouth, Rule Your World!”
Sermon Message Part 6 (C): “The Truth About Lying: A Lie Can Never Stand!”
I Hear The Lord Saying to You Today:
“Only You Can Prevent Forrest Fires!" For the Entire Message I am Only Talking To “You!”
Good morning, and Praise the Lord!
As a child growing up, and even today, I love the commercial with "Smokey the Bear," in the television commercial warning, "Only You Can Prevent Forrest Fires!"
Smokey the Bear is absolutely correct. Only human beings can help prevent Forrest Fires by putting out cigarette butts responsibly. But please do not smoke cigarettes at all. Smoking is addictive and hazardous to your health, as well as to other people, and the environment.
Now, consider two other sources that start fires in the lives of people, as well as everything created in the earth. That is:
Evil Speaking and Telling Lies
As we learned last week, with this little member of the human body called the “tongue,” Mankind has set themselves and the world on fire! (James 3:5-8.)
God says, only “You,” The born-again Christian—His spiritual king and priest—can prevent evil speaking and the spinning of lies. More specifically, as God’s spiritual king and priest, you should never be found speaking evil: fear, doubt, unbelief, murmuring, complaining, gossiping, backbiting, cussing, cursing, using lude and crude words, swearing and worthless words. Umm—worthless words like—“cross my heart and hope to die!”
Likewise, we should never be found speaking guile: treachery, deceit, and telling lies.
Examine I Peter 1:14-16 please. It reads as follows:
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves
according to the former lust in your ignorance:
But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye
holy in all manner of conversation, Because it is
written, Be ye holy for I am holy.
Also see James 3:10-12, it reads:
Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and
cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so
to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same
place sweet water and bitter water? Can the fig
my brethren bear olive berries? Either a vine
figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water
and fresh.
You are a child of the Most High God. You should only talk like your Father God. You need to settle it right now, by putting your human brain on notice, that you are extinguishing and taking away all of the ambers—the fires evil speaking and telling lies—from your mouth.
By the Word of God and help of the Holy Ghost, you must determine to be holy in all manner of conversation, in every setting you find yourself in. God is holy, therefore you ought to be holy—in your thinking, attitude, speaking, and behavior.
Listen to the promise we have from God, as recorded at Psalm 50:23. It reads,
Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him
that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew
the salvation of the Lord.
If you will honor God with praise from the fruit of your lips, and order your conversation right—speak good things and tell the truth—God promises to deliver to you His prosperity, health, and longevity.
You must come to understand that as God’s spiritual king and priest, that the words you speak are weighty. You have been given Spiritual Authority to rule and reign over evil in the world, and nothing by any means shall hurt you! (Luke 10:18-19) When you open your mouth and decree a thing it is established in the earth. (Job 22:28) And, when you declare a thing, your soul makes its boast in what the Lord has done, and the humble shall hear and be made glad as well. (Ps.34:2)
You ought to know by now that God has set before you: life and death, blessing and cursing, and God has commanded you to choose life, so that you and your children may live in health and prosperity. (Deut. 30:19) So choose life! You are to understand that death and life is in the power of the tongue and those who love it shall eat its fruit. (Prov.18:21) You have been anointed to love life and see good days—therefore, speak life!
Furthermore, God has given to you a precious promise that if you fear the Lord and delight greatly in His commandments your seed (Words & Children) shall be mighty upon the earth, and wealth and riches shall be in your house. (Ps.112:1-3)
Yes, it’s all about the words “You” speak that either builds your paradise or wasteland here on earth. By now you should fully understand the “Law of Sowing and Reaping.” If you sow words to your flesh, (evil speaking and lies) of the flesh you will reap corruption. And praise God, if you sow words to the spirit, from the spirit you reap everlasting life. (Gal. 6:7)
Daily, the temptation to sin crouches at the doors of the human brain of every Christian, waiting for each of us to take the bait with our tongues to agree to enter into sudden fear, hurts and sorrows, confusion, offenses, tribulation, and insecurities—and speak evil and tell lies to family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and Christian peers.
Satan, the Father of lies, orchestrates chaos and confusion in this world, to attempt to coerce Christians with evil speaking and lie- telling to usurp their God-given dominion and authority over the earth; to destroy marriages and families, friendships, governments, nations, businesses, churches and stir up global and national catastrophes and plagues.
But “You” are no longer going to take the bait of speaking evil and telling lies. You are on the Lord’s side now and see all things from heaven’s perspective. Along with God, you must come to the place today, where you hate evil talk and lying lips; and will no longer tolerate it in your life, and the lives of others. But move quickly in a spirit of love and truth to expose and correct such speech.
Last week, we talked extensively about the origin of lying and how Mankind became infected with telling lies. Let me, for a few moments, talk about the deleterious effects lying to one another has on people, including those of us in the body of Christ, and your family.
We established that a “lie” is an untrue assertion that is motivated by the spirit of pride and rooted in the spirit of fear, authored by Satan. The person telling the lie intends for the receiver to believe a false statement, as truth. How devilish is that when you think about it?
Thus, a lie involves an intention to deceive. God hates pride and lying. Examine these many Scriptures which reinforce God's hatred toward lies, liars, and judgement rendered upon those who make lying a habit. Without repentance no lie told, nor its author will be able to stand! (Ps. 5:6, 63:11, Prov. 6:16-19, 8:13, 12:19 & 19:9)
Lying is one of the major reasons why the prayers of many Christians go unanswered. As Isaiah 59:2-3 shows, when you separate yourself from the truth, you separate yourself from God:
But your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God, and your sins have
hidden His face from you so that He does not
hear. For your hands are defiled with blood
and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have
spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters wickedness.
You see, the eternal God who is Truth, created “All things” in heaven, earth, and beneath the earth in truth. (Ps.117:2, 119:89, 160) All things God made are subject to time. When lies are told, we move in a false reality, deceiving ourselves and many times other people along the way as well. Since every lie is false, it cannot stand the test of time, eventually the lie will be exposed to the truth, and the lie along with its teller will fall to the ground.
Check out what Jesus Christ said about secret sins at Luke 8:17:
For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.
No matter how secret and private, low, filthy and dirty, all sin will be brought out and made known to all! Satan wants every person to live in “false-hood.” To go through life clothed in darkness and secrecy at home, work, school, church, and sundry other places—spreading and planting seeds of lies and deception. Every place where a lie and deception is told the way of evil and death is intended to be harvested.
Whenever a lie is told, the person moves away from God who is “Truth.” When a person lies, they harm themselves and the people they are in relationship with. Lying is an act of betrayal, and violates the trust of friends, spouses, family members, and co-workers who are trying to build a relationship with the person.
When people find out they have been lied to, often times the lies can result in fracturing and even destroying the relationships. Distrust has been established and creates a boundary between the person and the lie teller.
Lying also becomes more complicated the longer someone lies. When people lie, they have to tell more and more lies to cover up the truth, which gets more and more stressful and emotionally draining.
We should have enough experience with lying to know that when you tell one lie—it not only leads to telling another related lie—but it also will lead you into telling lies about other un-related things. In other words, if you tell one lie, Satan will open the door for you to tell brand new lies. A Father loves to see his son following in his footsteps, you see? Satan wants you to become a spreader of lies as himself—having no truth in him and you as well.
Because lies hide a part of ourselves and our feelings, it also becomes more and more difficult for people who lie, to know how they truly feel and ultimately they lose who they really are!
A glaring example of this in today’s world is the practice of “homosexuality.” Homosexuality is spreading like wild-fire around the world, as people have forsaken the truth about their gender.
From the beginning of the world, God made human beings male or female. (Mark 10:6-9) But, Satan the master liar has tempted billions of people to think they can change their gender based on how they feel about their sexual orientation and proclivities.
Homosexuality is the practice of sinful behavior rooted in unbridled and unnatural lust—and not a human identity. As the person confesses with their mouth and indulges in same-sex acts, they deceive themselves and change the natural use of their bodies. They burn in their own lust with others of the same-sex and bring the wrath of God and judgement on themselves. (Rom. 1:21-28)
This brings us to another extremely important reason God hates lying—that many are unaware of in the body of Christ. "Lying makes your children and future generations susceptible to becoming liars. In other words, using your tongue to spin lies, without heart-felt repentance, can cause your whole family tree to become infected with lying, set their lives on fire, and potentially see to it that they see many evil days, and a shortened life span.
Habitual multi-generational lying is past down from the fathers to their offspring. Remember, Satan is the Father of Lies and only comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. Satan’s prime-time target is the “family,” because God from the beginning of the recreated earth, ordained and placed the blessings of fruitfulness, multiplication, and dominion on the family. (Gen. 1:28) In God’s family tree and order, fathers serve as the head of the human family. (I Cor.11:3)
In an attempt to separate the family from God, Satan tempts fathers to lie and past down pathological lying to their spouse, children, and generations following.
As we noted last week, Satan nurtured and fed lies and deception to Adam and Eve regarding eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The couple disobeyed God and partook of the tree, attempted to cover up their sin, and lied about who was responsible for their sin. (Gen. 3:8-12) Then, we find Cain the first born of Adam and Eve, before the presence of God lying and attempting to cover up the murder of his twin brother Able. (Gen. 4:8-9)
Later, God established His covenant with Abraham, saying that through his seed “all families of the earth would be blessed.” (Gen 12:3) However, again it was Satan who plagued the Patriarchs of Old with the habit of lying and deception. Several of the lies and deceptions of Abraham and his family are captured in the following chapters of Genesis for your study.
See Abraham, (Gen. 12:11-20 & 20:1-20)
See Isaac, (Gen. 26:1-11 & 27)
See Jacob (Gen. 30:1-25 & 31:1-55) and Jacob’s sons with Joseph. (Gen. 37)
The fathers and wives in their generations habitually engaged in a pattern of lying and deception concerning their marital status, birthright blessings, business dealings, as well as a sibling kidnapping carried out by the sons of Jacob, which ultimately led them lying to their father about Joseph’s supposed death.
The lies and deceptions told by the Patriarchs of Old, paved the way and fueled family dis-function and discord, plagues on a nation, and sowed distrust and disharmony with leaders of nations and their people. During the age of the Patriarchs of Old, there was no law against false witnessing and lying. (Rom. 4:15 & 5:13) Still, when evil is sowed in the life of any person it ensures a harvest of evil days. (Gal. 6:7-8)
It was not until the establishment of the Ten Commandments under the Old Covenant given to Moses for the children of Israel that bearing false witness, including lying became a sin subject to judgement and punishment by God. (Exodus 20:16)
As born-again Christians, we are also heirs of the promises made to Abraham through faith in the finished works of Jesus Christ on the cross. We have received the promise of the blessing of Abraham by the Holy Ghost, (Gal. 3:6-9, 13-14 and 28-31) Jesus Christ bore our sins and the curse of the law of the Old Covenant in His own body, in which we have received redemption from all sin. In Christ, we are all the children of God—the family of God.
As such, “You” are not to be ignorant of the vices of the enemy. Satan who is still the Father of lies, and poisons the thinking of father's—including Christian fathers—to speak lies so they can be passed down and throughout the family tree.
Lies that result in adultery, abortion, abuse, addiction, fornication, homosexuality, failing business practices, false worship and idolatry, racism, hatred for family, favoritism, fables and the traditions of men.
If Christians walk in the flesh (carnal mind) led about by Satan’s attacks of the human brain with temptations to tell lies, and enter into deceits, then they will fulfill the lusts of the flesh just as the Old Patriarchs did, and sinners in this world do today. (Rom. 8:5-8)
If we think we can have daily worship with God while practicing lying one to one another, we deceive ourselves. For God must be worshipped in “spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)
As a Christian you can offer no excuse for speaking lies and deceiving people. You are born-again of, and by, the truth! Examine James 1:8. And, let’s spread the news to every born-again Christian. It reads,
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
Praise Almighty God, you are born-again by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God—born of the truth—so you would be a first fruit of Jesus Christ. Meaning, now that you are in Jesus Christ, the nature of your new man is born in truth—your DNA is truth! You were born in truth so that you would be a truth-teller just like Jesus Christ! You should be growing in Christ daily by living as tellers only of truth to everyone.
Watch the power and favor of God that comes on those who walk in love and use their tongues to speak truth. See Proverbs 3:3-4.
Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
bind them around your neck, write them
on the tablet of your heart. So you will find
favor and good repute in the sight of God
and man.
Take a few minutes now and meditate. Look into your heart and see the Godly-image of “You” walking and living in truth. Everywhere and with everybody treating them with kindness and speaking words filled with truth and integrity. As you think in your heart, so are “You!”
You stand out as a bright light before all men, different from what most people have ever seen or known—a Christian who never speaks evil or lies—only love and truth! Glory be to God!
GOOD THINGS ARE ATTRACTED TO TRUTH—BECAUSE GOOD THINGS ARE MADE IN TRUTH! SO MAKE IT YOUR HABIT TO TELL THE TRUTH, AND GOOD THINGS WILL GET ATTACHED TO YOU!
To help train and control your mouths in speaking only the truth, God in Christ Jesus has given to you the Holy Ghost. In fact, one of the names of the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth who has come to lead and guide you into ALL TRUTH. See John 16:13. It reads,
Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come,
he will guide you into all truth, for he shall
not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall
hear, that shall he speak, and he will shew you
things to come.
No matter how difficult or stressful it may seem to tell the truth to people, let all your conversations be holy, and full of grace and truth, as the Holy Ghost will teach you what to say. (I Peter 1:15 & John 1:14) We are commanded even to stop telling lies and to tell the truth at all times as we have put off the old-man with his sinful nature and deeds and put on the new man whose nature and deeds are after Jesus Christ. (Col. 3:9)
In fact, making the decision to never lie again, (and certainly if we do quickly and earnestly repenting) is simple when you think about the love commandment we have from Jesus Christ. Let’s read John 13:34—ready read:
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye
love one another as I have loved you, that you
love one another.
Now I ask you these questions: Has Jesus Christ ever lied to you? Has Jesus Christ ever deceived you? Has Jesus Christ ever gossiped about you? Has Jesus Christ ever smiled in your face and then turned around and stabbed you in the back? The answer is NO!
Since Jesus Christ never lied or deceived you, what right do you have to lie or deceive another person or entity? (e.g., family, friends, Christian peers, employers, legal authorities, governmental authorities, or educational systems.)
If “You” claim to know Jesus Christ, the Lord, and do not keep His commandments, the Bible says that you are a liar and have no truth in you. (I John 2:4) Telling lies and deceiving others is a form of murder and breaks the love commandment we have from Jesus Christ, to love others as He has loved us. (I John 4:20.
Any person who has the habit of lying and deceiving others, without repentance, has no truth in them, and is not truly in Jesus Christ! That person qualifies themselves for an eternal seat in hell and the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. (Rev. 21:8)
Let me close this Sermon with guidance on quickly turning away from lying and deceit. As Christians, God’s spiritual kings and priests, we have at one time or another spoken lies, cheats or deceits—whether knowingly or unwittingly. This includes exaggerations of the truth, half-truths, little lies or big lies—they all are hated in the sight of God. And, work against what God has made us to be—which is Truth in Jesus Christ.
Thank God, under this New Covenant, Jesus Christ serves as our Great High Priest seated at the right hand of God who is touched with our infirmities (even our weaknesses to speak lies and deceits) who was tempted at all points like as we are and yet He never sinned. We boldly take every lie, cheat, and deceit we have ever told to anyone or an organization about a matter to Jesus—to his throne of grace that we might obtain mercy and grace to help us in time of need. (Heb. 4:14-16)
We confess ALL forms and words of lying spoken with our tongues with great humility, and receive by Covenant right of inheritance forgiveness for our sins. We do not deny our wrong or hold back any aspect of our wrong in speaking lies and deceits, and receive the ever cleansing blood Jesus, which washes us clean and whiter than snow. (I John 1:5-9 and Eph. 1:7)
And, now we exercise ourselves in repentance. We walk in the light as God is Light and have fellowship with God and each other in love, truth and integrity of heart.
We put away ALL lying, and with every person speak the truth. (Eph. 4:25) Because we are one in God in Christ Jesus we will no longer allow lying to separate us from God and our brothers and neighbors.
Confession one to another of our faults is such a loving action we can take to correct and turn from lying and deceit. As I noted last week, one method of curing habitual liars of lying, is for the lie-teller to confess it publicly—even before the person(s) lied to or on.
Following on with earnest prayer, the liar can be forgiven and restored. Further, Jesus Christ has established protocols for handling offences in the Church to maintain Spiritual Authority, if a brother caught in an offense refuses to resolve the matter amicably. (James 5:16 & Matt.18:15-20)
Then, we also pray for those who are suffering with the addiction to lying and refuse to tell the truth. We ask that God would send the Holy Ghost to prick their hearts with a burning desire to repent and uncover secret sins, lies, and deceptions; and speak the truth in love before the coming of your dear Son Jesus Christ to rapture His Church. For His Church shall be clean, not having spot, blemish, wrinkle or any such thing.
We are now for-warned and armed with the truth about lying: A Lie Can Not Stand. For surely all those who love making lies shall make their eternal beds in hell and the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
Nevertheless, we are impassioned to press forward in our thought-life (human brains) to think only on those things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtuous, and praise-worthy—so that the God of Peace will be with us always. (Php. 4:8-9)
We yield ourselves as instruments of righteousness, whereby we give permission for the Holy Ghost to control our conversations—ever cleaning our thoughts and banishing all filthy communications from our tongues. (Eph. 4:29)
We know that God is faithful and He will never allow us to be tempted by any sin, above that which we can endure, including lying and deceiving others, but with the temptation also make a way to escape that we may be able to bear it. (I Cor.10:13)
Therefore, we are excited, happy, and hilarious to be empowered by God to speak only the truth in love so that we may grow-up in all things in Jesus Christ the Anointed One and His Anointing! (Eph. 4:15) And, we receive the favor from God and men as we travel on the road of the way, the truth, and the life Jesus Christ. (John 14:6)
Remember, Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires—by telling the truth! You are made of the Truth so be who you are to all people, at all times—TRUTH!
For he that will love life, and see good days,
let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his
lips that they speak no guile (treachery deceit
lies) (I Peter 3:10)
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See you next week should the Lord Tarry!