The Problem of Lying, Part 1

Back in 199, I was perusing a bookstore. and came across this book, The Day America Told the Truth This book is an absolutely fabulous Book These two men, James Patterson and Peter Kim, decided to do an in-depth study of America and their values, their morals, what they believed, what they didn't believe And that book brings together all those statistics And what they have found out about America is something you probably already know And that is that just about everybody lies In fact, 91% of us lie regularly That means 9% of us lie irregularly

But they found out that as they began to question people over a long, extended period of time, That men lie more than women That's not surprising Young men lie more than older men Gays and bisexuals lie more than heterosexuals Catholics lie a bit more than Protestants And both lie more than Jews Unemployed people lie more than those with jobs The poor lie more than the rich, and liberals lie more than conservatives Americans lie, is their conclusion They lie more than we ever thought possible

They said and found out that there are more serious liars today. than at any other time in our nation's history Lying has become a cultural trait in America Lying is embedded in our national character That hasn't been really understood around the world, but Americans lie about everything, and usually for no good reason The majority of Americans, two out of every three, believe that there is nothing wrong with telling a lie Only 31% of us believe that honesty truly is the best pol. I wonder what you think about lying In telling the truth It is a problem

And tonight, my desire is to help you understand that problem But what I want to do is set the tone For what we want to talk about tonight, about the problem of lying, by having you look at two people, a couple in the Bible And so turn with me in your Bible, if you would, to Genesis Chapter 12 And what I want to do is, I want to look at these two people to help you understand the problem of lying And then we'll get into our outline and go through the different points that are there, and hopefully, end up by helping you understand what it is you can do if you have this problem

The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter 12 about the call of Abraham And Abraham would be led by God to the great and wonderful promised land When he arrived, it says in verse 7, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants, I will give this land Here you are, Abraham This is your land This is what I'm going to give to you, and this is what I'm going to give to your descendants So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east

And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord And Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Nege Verse 8 is very important to understanding our story in Genesis chapter 12 Abraham arrived in the land that God promised to him and his descendants He built an altar in Bethel, which is the house of God And there he called upon the name of the Lord, and there he worshipped God And that verse is the key to understanding Genesis chapter 12 It says in verse number 10, Now there was a famine in the land

Now, if you just look at that, you realize that this is the promised land This is the good land And yet, it's a land not without problems And you can imagine the conversation between Abraham and Sarah Wait a minute, this is what God has promised us? He's brought us here all these miles To land in this area, all to find out that there's a great famine in this land Now, Abraham, being the leader that he was, had to be thinking, I've got to take care of my family

After all, I've got some livestock, I've got some servants, I've got to take care of them, I've got a wife, and I've got to take care of my family. I've got to do something So the Bible says, so Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land Abraham thinks to himself, you know, if I just gather everybody together, go down to Egypt, I can escape the famine. I can have food for the family. I can take care of my family. I can be a responsible husband. I can be a responsible leader And I can take care of the people that God's entrusted to me

Sounds good, right? The only problem is he never asked God about going to Egypt Now, Egypt in the Bible, according to Isaiah chapter 31, verse number 1, is described this way Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses and trust in chariots because they are many And in horsemen, because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord That's exactly what happened to Abraham He did not look to the Lord

When the famine arose in the land, and it was a severe famine, he didn't fall on his knees and say, God, what do I do now? You brought me here You must want me to be here How do I handle a very difficult situation? Instead, Abraham did what most of us do, and that is, he began to think log, but he did not think theolog And that always presents a problem Logically, he's got to take care of the family Logically, he's got to provide for his servants Logically, he's got to feed his livestock But he didn't call upon the Lord He didn't wait upon the Lord He didn't seek the Lord

Instead, as Isaiah 31 says, he went down to Egypt He went down to rely on what was in Egypt instead of relying on what God said Had said Now, the word of the Lord brought him to the land of Canaan The word of the Lord brought him to where he was But the word of the Lord did not take him from Canaan to Egypt He decided that's what he needed to do And on the outset, it sounds good On the outset, it sounds Fine It sounds like this man's responsible He's a leader He's taking the initiative He's got drive He's got motivation He's got desire He's going to take care of his people

And that sounds really good But there is a problem There becomes a major problem Abraham could have waited upon God to do a great work, right? I mean, after all, God specializes in great work After all, God brings tests in our lives in order to prove him faithful, right? And the Bible says over in Isaiah 28:16, he that believeth shall not make haste, or he that believeth shall not be in a hurry And yet, Abraham, our father of faith, should have at least looked to his God and said, You know what, Lord, what do I do now? How do I handle this situation? Instead, he took matters into his own hands

And taking matters into your own hands becomes a big problem, as we will see, as we read on You know, there are times in our lives where we experience famines, don't we? Sometimes they're physical famines Sometimes they're spiritual famines Sometimes they are emotional famines, but we face them And the Bible says over in Psalm 104, verse 14: He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth God causes the growth of the vegetables God causes the growth of all things so his people and his animals will be taken care of

Now, if God does that and there's a famine in the land, then there is a reason for God to do that in order to help us learn to trust Him for more But Abraham had an idea Will go down to Egypt And that begins the problem It says, verse 11 And it came about when he came near to Egypt that he said to Sarah his wife, See, now I know that you are a beautiful woman And it will come about when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will let you live

Please say that you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account Of you Now, when I read that, I read of a man who's in great fear The Bible says in the book of Proverbs, 29th chapter, 25th, verse That the fear of man brings a snare Whenever you fear man, you're going to be entrapped You're going to be in big trouble And Abraham said to Sarah, You are absolutely gorgeous, and you are my wife And they're going to want you But if they know that you are my wife, what they will do is kill me Well, I don't want to die, Sarah

Sounds a little self-serving to me. I don't want to die, Sarah, so you tell them that you are my sister Which, in fact, is a half-truth because Sarah was his half-sister So people tend to excuse Abraham on that account, that it was his half-sister, and so Abraham could get away with it But his whole motive, listen, was self- His whole motive was to protect his own life You see, because he didn't seek God back in Canaan, instead, when the famine came, he decided to do something on his own Now he has to continue to do something on his own

That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understand In other words, don't think logically Think theologically Because whenever you begin to lean on your own understanding, you're going to have a problem The Bible says in all your ways acknowledge God and He will direct your paths Abraham did not acknowledge God in the midst of the famine He just did what he thought was the right thing to do You ever found yourself in that situation? You've got a problem in your home

What do you do? You got to do something, so you make a decision You don't seek the Lord You don't call upon the name of the Lord You just make a decision And learning to do that and thinking logically is going to lead you to grave consequences because Abraham now says, Look, Sarah, we're in a situation where if we don't If we don't lie, we're going to die At least I'm going to die And Abraham says, I can't die. I'm the father of faith here. I can't die So that's what we'll do Well, read on the story Let's know what it says

It came about when Abram came into Egypt that the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful, and Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house Abraham says, Listen, I'm willing to compromise your purity and your holiness For my life, so we can live All you got to do is lie So they look upon her, she's beautiful Pharaoh takes her into his house Abraham lives Now, listen to what happens: verse 16

Therefore, he treated Abram well for her sake, and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels Look what happened to Abraham He didn't tell the truth He lied And look what he got He got an over of things So, what's he thinking? Lying works Look what I got Now, remember, Abraham, his whole life, his whole descendant, if you go back to Genesis chapter 12, verse number 3, it says, And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed Now Abraham didn't seek the Lord when he went to Egypt, but let's say he's there now

Now he has an opportunity to show Egypt That his God is the protector of his life, that his God is the preserver of his life, that his God is the provider of his life He's got a great opportunity to make a testimony for his God, Jehovah And what does he do? He lies He lies And upon lying, he receives all these gifts So you think, wow, I guess the ends do justify the means It all works out But read on But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of who? Sarah God's going to protect that woman in spite of her husband

Ladies, when your husband makes a bad choice and doesn't seek the Lord, mark it down God will protect you And God protected her If you read into the Hebrew, you realize that God struck them with some kind of sexual disease. which prohibited Pharaoh from having any kind of sexual relations with Sarah God protected that womb God protected that woman because in that womb would come the line of the Messiah And so God was going to protect Sarah But read on Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this? You have done to me

Why did you not tell me that he was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister, so that I took her for my wife? It's pretty humiliating when the pagan rebukes the child of God Why didn't you tell me? Why weren't you truthful? Why weren't you honest? Look what happened to my household because you lied to me, Abraham So, now then, here is your wife Take her and go And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they escorted him away with his wife and all that bel to him Think about it This is not the end of the story This is the beginning of the end of the story

He's able to gather all this wealth because Pharaoh let him keep it Took it back with him How is it all this happened? The answer is in verse number 8 of chapter 12 In the house of God, he called upon the name of the Lord But whenever you leave the house of God, You're bound to fall away from God It is absolutely inevitable Why do you go to the house of God? You go to the house of God to reflect on the character of God When you're able to reflect on the character of God, you're able to renew your confidence in God When you renew your confidence in God, you remember the call of God

When you remember the call of God, you'll relish the coming of God That's why you go to the house of God And you will note, chapter 13 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev He and his wife, and all that belonged to him, and lot with them And Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold And he went on the journeys from the Nege as far as Bethel to the place Where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly, and there Abram called on the name of the Lord

So now Abraham goes back to where he's supposed to be and calls upon the name of the Lord In the in-between time, when he left the house of God and didn't recognize his God He had forgotten about his call He had forgotten about the character of God He had forgotten about having confidence in God He had always confidence in him And he failed miserably It led him to lie, not speak the truth Say, well, look what he got The effects of what he got are severe because both of them have lasted to this very day One lie has lasted to this very day in two ways Number one, in the life of Lot

You see, Lot got a taste of Egypt Lot was Abraham's nephew He got a little taste of Egypt He got a little taste of the good life He got a little taste of Vegas in him See, he was able to go down to Vegas and see the bright lights and see what was going on down there And you know what? He liked it He liked it Look what the Bible says in verse 10 And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah Like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar

Abraham had gotten all this wealth, and Lot had gotten a taste of all this wealth, and when it came time to make a choice Abraham says, Where do you want to go? And I say, Man, I'm going that way because that way looks just like Egypt And I was in Egypt and I liked it there, and you took me from there, and I'm going that way And of course, you know the story about Lot He began to lean towards Sodom He then lived in Sodom because truly he loved Sodom He lost it all You go to Israel today, the effects Listen, the effects of one man's lie affected his family

And as you look over the Dead Sea, you can see the effects of one man's lie But what about the other effect? Over in chapter 16, Genesis, verse number 1 Now Sarah, Abram's wife. had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar How'd they get her when they went down to Egypt? They got Hagar The whole plan about Abraham going into Hagar and bearing a child, and she did His name is Ish And you know what? We have problems in the Middle East today because one man lied Way back in Genesis chapter 12

See that? You see the effects of one man's lie? And it was just not even that big a lie It was just a little lie, it was a half-truth But you see what happens when you leave the house of God? You see what happens when you don't call upon the name of the Lord amidst the famine? You begin to lean on your own understanding, trust your own resources, trust your own personality, your own education, your own effects Look what happens Your testimony is ruined, as Abraham's was His family was ruined Because he lied Now, is he the father of our faith? Yes

He has had the opportunity to experience what the psalmist said in Psalm 103, verse number 10 God hath not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities Praise be to God for that But we need to learn the lessons, right? And so that story sets the tone for the problem of lying But let me talk to you tonight, beginning with point number one: the origination of lying Where does it all begin? Well, we know that the Bible says in Numbers 23, 19, that God is not a man that he should lie We also know that Hebrews 6. 18 says that it is impossible for God to lie

So we know that lying did not originate with God We also know what the Bible says in John chapter 8, verse number 44, when Christ said to the religious leaders, You are of your father, the devil And you want to do the desires of your father He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Whenever he speaks, A li he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies Satan is the originator of the lie He is the father of li

And of course, if you go to Genesis chapter 3, his whole temptation with Adam and Eve was built around a lie It wasn't the truth And so it all originates with Satan And when you are born, you are born a child of the devil. I'm not sure we understand that, but we are. I was holding Avery just the other day, and I was talking to Lori about Avery, and she was sitting there, and I said, She's so beautiful on the outside, but she's so ugly on the inside Because she's a child of the devil She's a child of the son of disobedience She's got a depraved nature

And when you think of it that way, you begin to realize that In sin did my mother conceive me, as David said And we are born separated from God We are born against God because we are children of our father the devil And when we're born again, now we become a child of God You're either a child of the devil or a child of God And once you become a child of God, you become a partaker of the divine nature, 2 Peter 1:4, and then you become a truth-teller But Satan is a liar He's always been a liar He perpetuates lies He wants us to lie Because whenever we do, he is honored He is magnified

He is put on display He want us to lie And so we begin to realize that in the depths of our heart, as Mark 7:2 says, that from the heart proceeds deceit Proceeds wickedness, murders, evil thoughts It all comes from the heart And that's why Christ said you got to clean up what's on the inside It does no good to just To take a bath on the outside, you got to clean up what's on the inside because that's where everything originates When you're born in sin, you're born a child of the devil And therefore, you are prone to lie That's why a man must be born again

That's why he must become a new creation That's why he must be regenerated from the inside out And only God Himself can do that And that's why when we're born again, we then become children of God And that's why John said in 1 John 3:1 Oh, what manner of love is this that we now have become or have been called the children of God? What a marvelous thing that we now can become God's children, having been partakers of His Divine nature The Bible tells us in Proverbs chapter 14, verse number 5: A faithful witness will not lie, but a false witness speaks lies

Proverbs chapter 14, verse number 25 says, A truthful witness saves lives, but he who speaks lies is treacherous The Bible says over in Proverbs chapter 26, verse number 24, these words: He who hates disguises it with his lips But he lays up deceit in his heart When he speaks graciously, do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart Though his hatred covers itself with guile, his wickedness will be revealed before the assembly Verse number 2, A lying tongue hates those it crushes, and a flattering mouth works ruin. A lying tongue hates those that it crushes

We begin to lie because of the hatred in our hearts We need to stop thinking that we're protecting someone from something because we lie to them What the Bible says is that we lie because, in all reality, we don't love that brother, we hate that brother It crushes the one it hates And we need to realize what the Bible says concerning our hatred And our lies Well, you see, when we begin to fear man more than we fear God, we will lie to protect ourselves

Abraham was so much into fearing man and not fearing God that he would take matters into his own hands to protect his life, even if he had to compromise the purity of his own wife That's what Genesis 12 is really telling us And so we realize that's important for us to fear God and no one else You don't have to lie All you need to do, as the Bible says, Is speak the truth in love Let's pray.