The Disastrous Sin of Lying

Speaker, John MacArthur

This sermon was given on April 10th, 2022

• Ephesians 4:25

The full text of the sermon can be found below the link to the video whereby anyone can watch and listen to this sermon.

“no civilization has ever lived with as many lies and liars as the one in which we live today. There was a time, for most of human history, where you only knew the lies that somebody told you. And then somebody invented a printing press, and then you could know the lies that somebody else told. Then somebody invented a telephone, and you could hear the lies from people who weren’t anywhere near you. And then came the wonderful Internet; and the Internet has created an explosion of lies that is beyond human comprehension. No generation of people has been exposed to more lies and more liars than this one, and that comes at your fallen flesh.”

~ John MacArthur

The Disastrous Sin of Lying (VIDEO)

“As you know, we are working our way through the book of Ephesians, and we’re going to continue that this morning, so you may be turning to Ephesians 4 while I just give you a little bit of a reminder of what this epistle is about. It really is about transformation. It’s about transformation.

In chapter 2 we read this: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus four good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ten verses that describe the dramatic, permanent, eternal, comprehensive transformation that salvation makes in a person’s life.

Over in the fifth chapter we have another section that looks at this transformation: chapter 5, verse 5, “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person, or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.” A transformation is, as I said, everlasting, eternal, comprehensive. What does it mean to be a Christian? In the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; [and] new things have come.” Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6, lists all kinds of sins, and then says, “Such were some of you; but you have been washed.”

Salvation is a complete transformation. You heard it in the testimonies, didn’t you? There are some people that think you can have a relationship with God even though you’re not transformed. No, salvation is a transformation; it is regeneration. You are a new person, and you are to live like a new person.

It is true: You will be transformed; it is also true: You must live in a transformed way. What is true of us is also required of us. By the transforming power of the Holy Spirit we are made new creations in Christ, but not apart from faith; and by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit we are made more like Christ in sanctification, but not apart from righteousness. Now Paul has brought us into chapter 4, right in the middle of this amazing epistle that talks about the transformation that salvation is: you are not the same, you are a new creation.

We come now to the text that I want to draw your attention to; and we actually are arriving at verse 25, but I want to read starting at verse 17 because here, again, the transformation is described: “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

What marks a person who is unconverted is unrighteousness, unholiness, and deception. The transformation produces one who has been created in righteousness and holiness and truth. So by the time you get to chapter 4, verse 24—that last verse that I read—you have the theology of transformation, you have the theology of salvation, you have the theology of conversion. And then in verse 25 you see, “Therefore.” And now we start in the rest of the epistle, which is the implications of that saving truth—because you have been transformed, here is how you are to live. And so I want to read verses 25 to 27. This is where Paul begins the practical part of this epistle.

Notice the two sins that he starts with. “Therefore”—since you have been made new in righteousness, holiness, and truth—“therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.” Of all the sins that Paul could have started with at the top of the list, it should be somewhat interesting to you that the first two sins he is concerned that Christians renounce—that’s what “laying aside” means: to completely renounce—are lying and anger, lying and anger. And they are associated, by the way, specifically with the devil, in verse 27. Lying and anger are the primary operational techniques of Satan. We know that because Jesus in John 8:44 said, “The devil . . . is a liar and the father of lies,” and, “he [is] a murderer from the beginning.” And obviously, the ultimate end of hate is murder. Even if you don’t murder, but you hate, you’re a murderer in your heart. And hatred and murder are the fruit of anger. This should be obvious to you because you’ve lived it out—we all have.

The two commonest, human-default sins are lies and anger. This is the initial default of all fallenness; the entire human race easily moves into lies and into anger. They’re the very categories of sin that are the absolute default position of a fallen human race. It’s where sinners go easily, easily; and we see that from the very youngest child. What characterizes young children? Lies and anger. It doesn’t take very long. Maybe by the time they’re two, they have begun to try to deceive you. And when you ask them at the age of three or four if they did that, they’ll say no. So when you welcome that beautiful little baby into your home, you just brought in a born liar who is hostile and angry; and then you’re surprised when you say no, and he slams himself on the floor and throws a tantrum. This is the foundation of hate and murder: You stood in his way; you interrupted his will.

Lying is the way you hide what’s wrong with you and avoid consequences. Anger is the way you reach out and assault the people who threaten your freedom. Psychologists say that by the time children are four, they have mastered the art of lying. It doesn’t take long. And just to remind you, Psalm 58:3—because some of you are saying, “Not my baby.” So I’m going to remind you of Psalm 58:3: “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.”

Your child is a born liar. We’re all born liars. That is the default position of all fallen human beings; and this is consistent with how Satan operates as a liar and a hateful killer. And since “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one,” 1 John 5:19, this infects the entire human race and, as I just quoted for you, does so from the time they come from the womb. This is the initial evidence of human depravity. But when you are converted, when you’re regenerated, when you are transformed, you become truthful and loving. That’s the dynamic transformation that takes place.

Consistent with that transformation, then, comes the instruction. Back to verse 25: “Therefore, laying aside falsehood”—since you have learned Christ, verse 20; since you “have been taught in Him,” verse 21; since “truth is in Jesus,” verse 21; since you have left behind “your former manner of life”; since you have been, verse 23, “renewed in the spirit of your mind”; since you have “put on the new self . . . in the likeness of God . . . created in righteousness and holiness of the truth”—stop lying, stop lying. The positive side of that came back in chapter 4, verse 15: “speaking the truth in love.” We are the people of the truth; we live in a world of liars. “Laying aside” means “renounce”; very simply, it’s “to take off,” like you took off your jacket. But in the deeper, metaphoric sense, it has the notion of renouncing something. Renounce “falsehood” or—excuse me—lies.

Listen to Romans 13:12. These are the kind of things you renounce: “Lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Hebrews 12:1, “Lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us.” James 1:21, “[Lay] aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness.” And here, “Lay aside pseudos,” from which we get “pseudo”—false; lies, untruths.

Now, he’s talking to believers. And immediately upon that, he reaches back into Zechariah and borrows the Old Testament statement, “Speak truth each one of you with his neighbor. For” thus says Yahweh of hosts; there are “things . . . you should do.” Here’s the first one: “Speak truth to one another.” Now that’s obviously not new with Zechariah because the commandment of Exodus 20:16 is not to bear false witness, which means not to lie. Leviticus 19:11 says don’t lie; don’t lie. And we as believers are told not to lie because we “are members of one another.” If you lie, you make it impossible for the body of Christ to function.

The analogy should be simple: If your extremities and your nerve system start sending the wrong messages, start lying to your brain, it won’t be long before you’ll be dead. You couldn’t even survive if, somehow, the messages, the distinctives of hot and cold were reversed; you would die—just something that simple. Your sensibilities have to be accurate, or you’ll die. And that’s how it is in the church. It would seem that it should be obvious to everyone we cannot function as one church if people are lying and lies are circulating through the body of Christ. How can we maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace that he talked about earlier in chapter 4, if we have liars spreading false information that cripples the body? But it’s common.

Not all of it is widely spread; some of it is very personal. You can lie in the most intimate kind of relationships. One of the sort of foundational lies you heard from Wyatt in his testimony—listen to 1 John 2:4: “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and doesn’t keep His commandments, is a liar.” Wyatt was basically saying to you in his testimony that for years he was a liar; he was a hypocrite.

That’s where the truth has to start. If you say you belong to Christ, it’ll show up in the fact that you will keep His commandments, and that means you will tell the truth. We are the sons of God; we are the children of God. The Holy Spirit lives within us, the Spirit of truth. Christ is the truth; and God is true, if every man is a liar. Psalm 31:5, Isaiah 65, calls God “the God of truth.” Psalm 86 says He is “abundant in . . . truth.” This is the nature of God. Exodus 34, He abounds in truth. Second Samuel 7 says, “You are God, and Your words are truth.” So we are the people of the truth. The church is the pillar and ground of what?—of the truth. This is the only way we can maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: is to speak the truth. Lies send the wrong signals and are disastrously dangerous.

Now as Christians, we know the truth. In fact, let’s start behind that. We believe there is such a thing as truth, right? We affirm absolute truth. We not only affirm that absolute truth exists, we know what the absolute truth is because it’s revealed on the pages of Scripture. So we are the people of the truth. But even as the people of the truth, we’re constantly having to battle against the liars who have infiltrated the church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth. And you know, we can fall prey to those things because there’s something about the remaining flesh that is drawn to deception, drawn to lies, drawn to anger, drawn to hate. It’s just still there because the sin is still in our flesh. So liars, and those who are angry and desire to do damage and harm, will find a hearing because there’s something in our flesh that pulls us toward that deception and that destruction. It’s part of just the remaining flesh.

But add to that this reality: that no civilization has ever lived with as many lies and liars as the one in which we live today. There was a time, for most of human history, where you only knew the lies that somebody told you. And then somebody invented a printing press, and then you could know the lies that somebody else told. Then somebody invented a telephone, and you could hear the lies from people who weren’t anywhere near you. And then came the wonderful Internet; and the Internet has created an explosion of lies that is beyond human comprehension. No generation of people has been exposed to more lies and more liars than this one, and that comes at your fallen flesh. You still have that weakness in you, and the massive amount of lies find you. You don’t find them; they find you. If you have a phone, they find you; they find you constantly. If you turn on the radio, they find you. If you turn on the television, they find you.

Everyone lies sometimes, and most people lie most of the time. People lie about everything. They lie about things you wouldn’t even think they would need to lie about; and they lie about things that are patently, obviously untrue. I keep thinking the big lie is that you can be a man and turn yourself into a woman. What kind of insanity is that? You’re on the level of somebody who thinks he’s a potato chip if you believe that. You can be told anything if you have that kind of incredulity.

And then I watch these children here. And you have a whole society of people, led by the President of the United States, who wants to make sure he makes laws so these children can be mutilated. Mutilated? Oh, yes. He said, mutilated so that they can become what God intended them to become. Mutilated for God’s sake—is that what you’re saying? I’ve never heard anything more perverse than that in my entire life. You better be careful when you drag God into your perversion. But people believe the lie, and if you say something about transgender being the lie, you might lose your job, you might get thrown out of your school, you might get canceled. The fear of the truth is proof of the extent of the lies.

So this is a hard time. From the top down, lies abound, and they are massive lies, and lies that on the surface should be rejected, unless you have a reprobate mind, as Romans 1 says happens when God puts a nation under judgment. Listen to Romans 3, verse 10: “’There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.’ ‘Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving.’” This is a description of sin, and the first sin specifically mentioned is lying because again, it is the default position of fallenness. It’s where sinners go most naturally. Why? For self-preservation, and to do harm and damage out of anger and hatred.

Listen to Psalm 62—just a verse there, and then one or two from Psalm 52—62:4, “They have counseled only to thrust him down from his high position; they delight in falsehood.” Why does a man assail someone else? Because he delights in falsehood. “They bless with their mouth, but inwardly they curse.” This is just how people are.

In the fifty-second Psalm, verse 1, “Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?”—somebody of prominence—“The lovingkindness of God endures all day long.” Why are you boasting in evil? “Your tongue devises destruction, like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit.” Yeah, you not only want to mutilate people with your lies, you want to mutilate them in reality because “you love evil more than good, [you love] falsehood more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.”

This is what the Scripture says about liars. Romans 1 says that when God puts people under judgment, they believe a lie, they believe the lies—part of the reprobate mind. And if you look into the future, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 talks about the time in the future when our Lord will come, and it says this: “God will send . . . them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false.” That doesn’t seem like a big jump, does it? How hard would it be for God to delude the entire population with a deluding influence?—they’re already deluded over things that should be obvious. And it’s going to get worse, and lies and liars are going to get worse, and the delusion is going to become worse and worse until our Lord comes to judge it all.

It’s important for people to understand how God feels about liars and lying. Listen to Proverbs 12:22, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.” Now if you take your concordance and look up the word abomination, and look at all the things that are an abomination to God, some pretty horrible things—and none of them is any worse than lying.

In Proverbs chapter 6, a familiar portion of Scripture, verse 16: “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes”—that’s pride; that’s the dominating sin. But the first two expressions of that: “a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.” Lying and hating, hating to the point where you would kill someone—that’s how angry you can be.

God hates a lying tongue, and He hates the anger that becomes hate, that can go as far as to kill. And Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:21 and 22, if you hate in your heart, it’s the same thing as murder. People are filled with lies and deception and anger and hate. The only thing that restrains them from murdering is the consequences. And Proverbs 26:28 says, “A lying tongue hates those it crushes.” “A lying tongue hates those it crushes.” When you lie to people, you lie to them because you hate them.

This is particularly true for people in leadership, and Proverbs makes that clear. Listen to Proverbs 29:12, “If a ruler pays attention to lies, all his ministers become wicked.” That is amazing, isn’t it? Did you hear that? “If a ruler pays attention to lies, all his ministers [are] wicked.” Well, why is that so? Because if a ruler is a liar and pays attention to lies, honest people will not associate with him. So when you have a liar in charge of everything, then he just accumulates liars, and then you have a massive deception. A lying president will be surrounded by people—not only people who can tolerate his lies, but people who are themselves liars and are content to lie; and the complex of the deception is dominating. That’s why Proverbs 17:7 says, “Lying lips are not for a” noble person, or a “prince.” When you have people lying in positions of responsibility, they then become surrounded by more liars; and the web of deception is overpowering and overwhelming.

In the last few years in our own country, we have been exposed to a level of lying that probably most of us thought would never ever happen. But they believe the lie. And God will send a deluding influence, and they’ll believe even more lies. They are liars; they are surrounded by lies. Sadly, there are people even who call themselves Christians who spin a web of lies. A corrupt, lying leader attracts corrupt, lying associates.

Throughout the Old Testament, lying lips are always an evidence—and this is important—of disdain for God. You hate God if you lie because God hates lying; so you’re taking God on. It isn’t complicated to know God hates lying. So if you’re a contented liar, you’re taking on God. It’s an abomination to Him, and it shows disdain for Him. And I warn you of this: Every lie you ever told will be recorded in heaven, every single lie you ever speak. Matthew 12:36, every word out of your mouth is on the divine record, and there will be an accounting for every word. Hell is full of liars; heaven is full of forgiven liars.

This is a very challenging time if you happen to be a parent, I think, because you have to train your child to tell the truth. If you train them to do anything, train them to tell the truth. We always told our children, “The wisest thing you can ever do is to admit that you lied, because the consequences will always be worse if you lied than if you told the truth.”

And that’s how God deals with us, right? “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to”—what?—“forgive us our sins.” But if we cover our sin and lie, we just put ourselves in jeopardy. Train your children to speak the truth; it’s absolutely critical. As a parent, make consequences when they lie, make consequences when they are angry—but we’ll get to verse 26.

For now, they need to know the consequences of lying are the most dire consequences. They need to fear lying because a person who doesn’t fear the consequence of lying will commit any crime, any sin. You want your child to be so afraid of lying that when he does lie, you know he’s lying because he won’t look at you. He’ll drop his head, his eyes will start closing, he’ll fumble for words, shuffle his feet, and you know he’s lying; and he’s lying because his conscience has been activated, because you’ve trained that conscience with the truth.

There’s a price to pay for telling the truth in this society. This is where most of the persecution of the church is going to come from—you understand that, right?—because we’re the people of the truth, and we’re going to speak the truth; and the one thing that a lying culture can’t tolerate is the truth, right? So we really are going to be the enemy of this entire system of deception. There’s an illustration of this that I think is powerful. Go back to Jeremiah chapter 5. Jeremiah chapter 5. I wish we had more time with it, but we’ll give you what we’ve got.

In Jeremiah chapter 5, Jeremiah preaching to the southern kingdom of Judah, telling them judgment was coming from the Babylonians in the captivity, 586 BC. And the severity of their sin is laid out in this fifth chapter—the reason they were going to be judged—and I want you to notice it. Verse 1: “Roam to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem”—this is the Lord speaking to Jeremiah: “Go through the streets of Jerusalem”—“and look now and take note. And seek in her open squares, if you can find a man, if there is one who does justice, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her.” Amazing. “Just find Me one truthful person in Jerusalem, one person who’s not a liar and a deceiver, and I’ll pardon her.”

Verse 2: “Although they say, ‘As the lord lives’”—they talk about the Lord; they talk about God; they want to appear to be religious, sure. “They say, ‘As the Lord lives,’” and then they lie: “‘they swear falsely.’ O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You have smitten them”—this is going back in previous divine judgments—“You have smitten them . . . they didn’t weaken; You have consumed them . . . they refused to take correction. [You’ve] made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent”—“they refused everything You did, and they just kept on lying. And now there’s not a person who tells the truth.”

“Then I said, ‘[Well,] they’re only the poor, they are foolish.’” It’s the—it’s the deprived people who are the liars, and “they’re foolish; for they don’t know the way of the Lord . . . [and they don’t know] the ordinance of their God.” But, he says, “I will go to the great and speak to them, for they know the way of the Lord and the ordinance of their God”—“I’ll go to the people who understand the revelation of God in the Scripture”—“But they too, with one accord, have broken the yoke and burst the bonds.” They’re a bunch of liars as well. “Therefore”—the judgment comes in the form of three rapacious beasts: “a lion from the forest will slay them, a wolf of the deserts will destroy them, [and] a leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

“‘Why should I pardon you? Your sons have forsaken Me and sworn by those who are not gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the harlot’s house. They were well-fed lusty horses, each one neighing after his neighbor’s wife. Shall not punish these people,’ declares the Lord, ‘and on a nation such as this shall I not avenge Myself?

“‘Go up through her vine rose and destroy, but do not execute a complete destruction; strip away her branches, for they’re not the Lord’s. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt . . . treacherously with Me,’ declares the Lord. They have lied about the Lord and said, ‘Not He.’” “They have lied about the Lord”—they have used the Lord’s name in vain. They have spoken as if the Lord is doing things that He approves of. This is an abomination; this is blasphemy: “Oh no, ‘Not He.’ Our Lord wouldn’t be doing this to us, not our Lord.” This “misfortune will not come on us . . . we won’t see the sword or famine.” “No, no. Our Lord.”

What do you mean, “Our Lord”? Down in verse 19 they call Him that: “Why has the Lord our God”—take that personal pronoun “our God”: the god we’ve made; the “god” is the god in the mirror, right? Every day somebody looks in the mirror, they’re seeing god. “Our God, the god we created, would never do this to us. Oh, our God would never punish a nation for mutilating children, slaughtering infants in the womb, advocating the destruction of everything righteous. No, not our God, the god of our invention.”

Verse 14, the Lord says, “I’m making My words in your mouth fire and this people wood, and it will consume them.” You may think God is on your side when you blaspheme Him and you abominate Him, but He’s not; He’s not when you bring Him into complicity with your gross transgressions. But that’s what people do. And then they say, “Wait a minute. Our God’s OK with this.”

Saw on television a woman in a Presbyterian pulpit praying a prayer ostensibly to God, thanking Him for providing transgender people in a church—in a pulpit, as a prayer. To what god do you think you’re praying? The god in your mirror; no other god.

And again, I want to just remind you that you have to train your children in the truth because they’re going to be drowning in a sea of lies. And if they aren’t restrained by the fear of consequences that you have inculcated in them, if they don’t feel the strong pangs of their conscience and even the fear of the true and living God, they will be more susceptible to the lies that dominate the culture, and they’ll have a hard time speaking the truth because there will be serious consequences for that. Train children of truth.

As the chapter comes to its conclusion, there’s so much here. The Lord speaks again about their lying. Verse 26, “For wicked men are found among My people, they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap, they catch men. Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; [and] they become great and rich” by deceiving. The greatest deceivers in this culture seem to be the people with the power and the money, don’t they? “‘They’re fat, they’re sleek, they . . . excel in deeds of wickedness . . . . Shall I not punish these people?’”—verse 29—“declares the Lord, ‘On such a nation as this shall I not avenge Myself?’”

And the religious leaders don’t help. Verse 30, “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it?” Mark it down: You live in a complex of godless lies, and there is a dire reality awaiting you at the end. You say, “Well, what is the end? Let’s go to the end and find out—Revelation 21, Revelation 21, this beautiful section of scripture that gives us a glimpse of heaven.

But listen carefully, Revelation 21:8, “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” I said it earlier; I’ll say it again: Hell is full of liars; heaven is full of forgiven liars, who are transformed into the people of the truth.

You’re told there that there won’t be liars in heaven because all liars will be in hell—all of them. Chapter 22 of Revelation—amazing that the specific issue of lying goes right to the end of Holy Scripture—verse 14, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city”—this is the heavenly city. “Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters”—same list as chapter 21, verse 8—“and everyone who loves and practices lying.” They’re not in heaven. Heaven’s not for liars. Heaven’s not for liars.

This is the most significant illustration of the hatred of God that dominates the power structure in this world and this nation: They lie, they lie. They lie about everything to cover their sin or to advance their sinful desires; to protect themselves or to make themselves rich in power and money.

And again, I say what I said earlier: There’s never been a time when we have been drowning in so many lies and liars. There have always been lies and liars because every person, in the default position, lies; but never have we had to deal with them beyond the scope of our normal relationship, so that the world dumps all of its lies on us all the time. And now the world is maniacally trying to censor people who speak the truth. I don’t care what kind of truth it is; it might be the truth about anything—truth about any person, truth about COVID—truth about anything; they lie. But we have to tell them; and this is a compassionate warning: If you’re a liar, you’re going to hell; it’s that simple. Unless you have been transformed into one who speaks the truth, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven; you will be on the outside, in a lake of fire.

Whether your lies are direct lies, half-truths intended to mislead, perjury, exaggeration, boasting, flattery, slander, false accusations, hypocrisy, deceitful behavior, whatever kind of lies—if, as Revelation says, you love and practice lying, you’ll never arrive in God’s holy heaven. Heaven only holds forgiven liars who’ve been transformed.

So let the church be true, right? Let the church speak the truth. And we always speak truth one to another. We are the people of the truth; the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Well, time is gone, so let’s bow in prayer.

The clarity of these Scriptures today, Lord, are unmistakable; we have no excuse. And I pray that everyone would do an inventory and we would be made aware by the prompting of your Holy Spirit, by the conviction of the Spirit, the activation of our conscience, whether we are people of the truth or liars. And Lord, give us the courage to be the people of the truth, no matter what the costs, knowing that You are the God of truth, Christ is the truth, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, the Scripture is the truth; and we are protected by Your promise that You will safeguard Your truth and Your people. I pray that You’ll help parents to raise their children to love truth and hate lies, that You’ll protect the little ones in this generation from the lies that they will be told in places where they’re vulnerable: through media, through school teachers, whatever it is. Protect Your church from lies; protect us, that we may always be known as those who are faithful to the truth, who love the truth, who proclaim the truth, at any cost.

Lord, we ask that You would work Your work of grace in every heart here, whatever that may be—the transformation of salvation, or the continuing work of sanctification—that we may be everything You want us to be, for Your glory; we pray in the Savior’s name. Amen.”