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Telling the Truth

 

Telling the truth is often inconvenient in today’s world. We even have a term for an untruth that is believed to be better than telling the truth—we call it a “white lie.” White, when used to describe something, means pure or true. A lie, on the other hand, is deceptive and impure. Is it possible to regain integrity in our truth-telling?

1. What commandment safeguards people’s reputations?

Exodus 20:16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.”

2. What does God delight in that highlights the principle behind this commandment?

Proverbs 12:22 “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.”

3. God told Adam and Eve they could eat from any tree in the garden but one. How did Satan, masquerading as a serpent, falsely misrepresent God?

Genesis 3:1 He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Revelation 12:9 identifies the “serpent” as “the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”

4. What two lies did Satan tell Eve have become the basis of most false religion?

Genesis 3:4-5 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

5. What description did Jesus give of Satan?

John 8:44 “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

6. Where do lies and slander come from?

Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”

7. In listing those who will not inherit God’s kingdom, among what company are slanderers placed?

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

8. Paul says some of the Corinthians had practiced the above sins. What does he say about their situation now?

1 Corinthians 6:11 “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

9. All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. What hope is there for us?

Romans 3:24-25 “[Sinners] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

10. How can sinners be declared holy?

Hebrews 10:10 “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

According to a Josephson Institute of Ethics survey, over a recent 10-year period, high school students lying to teachers and parents increased from 75 per cent to 88 per cent. Yet 76 per cent said, “When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.” This illustrates the contradictions people live with in the world today.

Christians are not to live that way. Paul says, “Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)”

(Ephesians 5:8, 9).  

 

Extract from Signs of the Times, October 2007.

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