| “Provide things honest in the sight of all men” (Romans 12:17). |
| “Lying lips are abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 12:22). |
| Honesty and truthfulness are two very important characteristics for us as Christians. Under no circumstances should we ever tell a lie. Honesty is not always rewarded in our culture today, and sometimes people are encouraged to lie, even by those in authority over them. A Christian man whom I know well once worked for a big company. They had ordered a special refrigerator for a customer, but when it arrived by truck, his boss decided that he wanted it for a good friend of his. He told my friend to phone the customer and tell him that the refrigerator accidently fell off the truck and was damaged, and that they needed to order another one. My Christian friend refused to do this, so the boss made the phone call himself and told the lie. Even though the boss was forced to tell the lie himself, he respected my friend for being honest. Later, when my friend left the company to start his own business, his boss told him that if he ever wanted his job back, he was welcome to come back and work for the company again. |
| I know true Christians who got into the habit of lying and being dishonest, and after a while, no one trusted them. Sometimes they added details to a story that they made up themselves, or left out details that made the story entirely different. In the Bible this is called guile, which means being deceitful, and giving the wrong impression by the way we tell something. You could not depend on anything they said, for you never knew whether they were telling the truth or lying. Long ago someone invented the term “white lie,” thinking that sometimes it was all right to tell a lie to get someone out of trouble, or to prevent someone from being embarrassed. But when we might think of doing that, let us remember that it is not only ourselves and others who should be considered, but more important, the Lord Himself. Lying is an abomination to the Lord, and dishonesty is a sin in the sight of God. God views lying so seriously that He mentions it right at the end of the Bible, saying that “All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Revelation 21:8). Even if it means getting ourselves into trouble, let us always tell the truth. The Lord is listening, and He will honor us for it. |
