Why Lie?

In the first century two early missionaries named Paul and Timothy wrote a letter to the church in Colossae.  One line in the letter reads, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.” (Colossians 3:9)

It is interesting to me that such a line would have to be included in a letter to Christians.  It comes toward the end of a list of behaviors that Christians should not partake in such as, sexual immorality, slander, malice, idolatry, and obscene language.  Lying fits right in with this list.  However, if we look closely, we see that Paul and Timothy did not simply write, “Do not lie.”  They wrote “Do not lie to one another.” (Emphasis added)

Now remember, this letter was written to a church.  That meant that he was writing to Christians.  Lying is clearly wrong.  Yet lying to your brother or sister in Christ is repugnant.  

 

It is very sad to see dishonesty among believers, though it is not surprising.  We are redeemed through Jesus’ atoning work on the Cross, but we still sin.  Sometimes that sin manifests in the form of lies, and sometimes those lies are directed at our brothers and sisters.

 

Lies are told for a number of different reasons.  Sometimes they are told to cheat.  Sometimes they are told to manipulate.  Sometimes they are told to cover up a truth that we are afraid to let be seen.  Yet they are clearly wrong.

 

Sadly, lies happen all too often, and when they do, they erode integrity and disintegrate trust.

 

What should we do?

For starters, do not lie.  Especially do not lie to your brothers and sisters in Christ.  The application of this verse is simple.

 

However sometimes we lie anyway.  If you do, come clean.  It is painful to be trapped in a lie.  If they do not know you lied, you do them a service by telling them the truth.  As a Christian, you have nothing to fear from the Truth.

 

If, on the other hand they know you lied then you do yourself a service.  You have already lost a lot of trust through your lack of integrity.  Without trust, you will not be able to engage with them in any meaningful way.  They know that you are an untrustworthy person, and they will not likely believe you, confide in you, or even talk with you much in the future.  Only through restoring your integrity can you restore a relationship, and this can only be done by confessing and repenting.  This integrity will be restored even further if you come clean before they call you out on the lie.

 

The Church is a family.  We are brothers and sisters.  Without trust, that family is broken.  Do not lie to one another.

Warnings are Good for the Soul

Michelangelo's depiction of Ezekiel

Thousands of years ago God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel:

 

“Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.”  (Ezekiel 3:17-21 ESV)

 

These are powerful words, and I think they have application for us today.  There are two aspects to this interaction.

 

Relating to the Wicked

People do evil things.  Some people make such a habit out of doing evil that they can rightly be called wicked.  When we see such people, we have two possible courses of action.  We could say something or say nothing.  If we say nothing, and they continue to be wicked, they will get what they deserve.  They may even die for their wickedness.  However, though we will not be accountable for their actions, we may be accountable for their death because we did not warn them.

On the other hand, if we do warn them and they do not turn from their evil ways, what follows is completely on them.  They did evil.  They knew they did evil.  They did not stop doing evil, and they got justice.  We tried to turn them from their wickedness, and they did not listen.  We are guiltless for what happened to them.

 

Relating to the Righteous

Sometimes people are less sinful.  Such people are referred to as “righteous.”  Keep in mind, these are not good people.  They are just less bad.  Jesus made this distinction in Mark 10:18 when he said, “No one is good but God alone,” and Paul made a significant distinction between the good and the righteous in his letter to the Church in Rome (Romans 5:7).  Righteous people are still sinful people.

 

As such, sometimes a righteous person sins.  Left unchecked this sin will lead to all his righteousness being forgotten.  This is where we come in.  We could say nothing.  In doing so, he starts down the path of wickedness that eventually might even lead to him dying for his evil deeds.  Though he is accountable for his actions, we, who said nothing, are accountable for his death.

The other option is that we could warn him.  Because he is righteous, he may well turn from his transgressions and do what is right again.  He could take warning at our admonishment and turn back to the right path.  If this is the case, we would have done both him and us a service.  We will have saved his life and our soul. 

 

Application

When we see evil happening, we should speak up, regardless of whether the person is (in our eyes) righteous or unrighteous.  They may or may not turn from their actions, but we will have fulfilled our responsibility.  More importantly we will have done the right thing.

 

There is another application as well.  Everyone reading this is either righteous or wicked.  Yet regardless of which group we are in, we still sin.  It may very well be that at some points someone will confront us because of our wrongdoing.  At that point we have a choice.  We could continue in our evil deeds or turn back to God and be restored.

 

Whatever we chose though, the one who warned us has done his part.  At that point, what happens to us in on our own heads.

 

Warn others when they do wrong, and listen to others when they warn you.  Both are good for the soul.

A Prophecy to the Ministry Worker

Thousands of years ago the prophet Jeremiah prophesied that the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem would be overthrown by Babylon.  He told the people of a choice.  They could surrender to Babylon, or fight.  If they fought, they would die.  If they surrendered, they would live in exile.  God told them to surrender.  The theme repeats in his prophecies over and over that a choice must be made.  Obeying the Lord would lead to life.  Disobeying would mean certain death.

Naturally, the chief political officers considered Jeremiah to be a traitor, and he was faced with persecution.  He was imprisoned and mistreated.  His viewpoint was unpopular.  It also happened to be right.

 

His words came to pass.  Judah was conquered by Babylon and went into exile.  Those who resisted died.

Jeremiah’s prophecies can be read in the biblical book named after him.  His words were written down by a scribe named Baruch who is only briefly mentioned in the Bible.  I imagine Baruch looking around at the political turmoil that resulted from Jeremiah’s controversial prophecies and thinking that he made a mistake working for this guy, as his employment had only brought him persecution and pain.  He may have even thought of abandoning his principles to go along with the popular views of the time.  He obviously had marketable skills.  He could have sought great things for himself in Jerusalem.

 

God cared about Baruch, and he gave him a personal prophecy recorded in Jeremiah 45:

 

The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: You said, Woe is me! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’ Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the LORD. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.”

 

Though this prophecy was given to Baruch years earlier it was not recorded in Jeremiah until after what Jeremiah had said was fulfilled.  It is as if Baruch looked back on what happened and remembered this personal prophecy.  He saw that he made the right decision by sticking with the unpopular choice of obeying the Lord, and as a result, he was alive to write the 45^th chapter of Jeremiah, a prophecy written to the ministry worker.

 

Obedience to the Lord, even when everyone else is against you, is better than going along with the crowd against the will of God.  Baruch made the right decision.  Will we?

 

An image of Baruch from Gustave Doré's illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours.

 

Special thanks to Tonya Dove who encouraged me to start writing again.

Do Not Fear Death

Nearly 2,000 years ago Paul famously penned the words, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,” in his letter to a church in Philippi located in what is now northern Greece.  The point he was making was that he saw great advantage in death, because in dying he would actually experience gain by leaving this world to be with Jesus. Yet, at the same time he also recognized that living also had great benefit in that it allowed him to continue to work with the church in Europe so that it would grow in joy and faith.  In short Paul did not mind if he lived or died because of his faith in Jesus.

Paul as painted by Rembrandt
(He probably did not actually look like this.)

These were words he had lived out in the presence of the very church he was writing to.  While in Philippi Paul was unfairly arrested and beaten without trial in a way that was in direct conflict with even the brutal laws of the Roman Empire.  He literally faced the possibility of death in Philippi as he did many other times throughout his life and ministry in advancement of the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  It was a ministry that would indeed eventually cost him his life.

Paul really believed.  He really believed that Jesus died for his sins and that through faith in Him, he not only had forgiveness of sins but access to God.  Anyone who believes this need not fear death because death brings the believer into the presence of Christ.  Anyone who really believes also sees great advantage in life as well, as it gives the believer yet another day to live for Jesus.

If you have ever been around someone in such despair that they want to die you likely noticed that their sense of sorrow is so palpable that it is oppressive to people who merely come into their presence.  They are in such a state of depression that they bring down everyone around them.

If you have ever been around someone afraid of death, you probably noticed something similar, though rather than overpowering sadness you sense their persistent anxiety.  Neither position is healthy, and they both seem in conflict with each other.  One wants to die, and the other fears death to the point where they cannot live.

Yet a christian who truly believes can simultaneously not want to die and want to die without conflict between the two positions.  Not only that, they can live in great joy while maintaining both stances.  I can tell you through first-hand experience that this seaming paradox is a great place to live.  To live life without fear of death is liberating.

The fear of death is very potent these days.  It is a fear that I would very much understand if I did not believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.

Yet I do not fear it because I believe that Jesus has already gone through death for me.  He took my sins and yours upon Himself and paid the price for all the evil we have done.  He then conquered death through his resurrection, and it is a resurrection that we will all eventually partake in if we believe.  Just as he told a first century peasant woman named Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies.”

As you look around at the world today, perhaps you are afraid that death waits for you just outside your door.  Perhaps the thought of dying terrifies you so much that you are afraid to live.  I urge you to put your trust in Jesus.  Because of Him, you need not fear death, and you can live a life of joy.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” -Jesus (John 3:16)

 

A Philosophy of Courage

The Lion's courage medal from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz
Photo attributed to The MagicImage Collection of Hollywood Memorabilia. 

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Joshua 1:9

Moses had recently died, and Joshua was taking over as the leader of Israel.  The Lord talked to Joshua and gave him instructions about to what to do next.  During that discourse God says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

The command to not be afraid is one of the most often repeated commands throughout the Bible.  It is a command that we all fail to follow, and the result of such failure is never good.

Before we continue, it is important to understand that there is a difference between fear and prudent action, just as there is a difference between courage and stupidity.

Perhaps the deadliest country I ever visited was Zaire.  It was a country full of poisonous insects, predatory animals, deadly diseases, and no quick way out should things go poorly.  At one point I found myself standing in the jungle just a few feet away from a very large Gabon viper (one of the deadliest snakes in the world).

I did not fear the viper.  However, at the same time, I did not kick it, step on it, or attempt to pick it up.  Rather I listened to my uncle’s instructions and stayed back until it slithered off into the grass.  Then we walked away in the opposite direction.  It is possible to not be afraid and still do the prudent thing.  In fact, when acting without fear, it seems to be significantly more likely that people will make wise choices.

Now that we have made that distinction, let us examine why we should not be afraid.

Fear does not help:

Fear often causes us to make dumb decisions.  To be fair, there is a biological reality here.  We have adrenal glands that kick in in stressful situations.  This chemical is designed to give us a boost when we need it most to either fight or run away.  It is a useful tool, but often we use it poorly and panic.  It is not uncommon, in immediate circumstances, to have fear hijack our adrenal boost and cause us to make dumb decisions.

Yet there is such a thing as long-term fear as well.  Some fears linger for hours, days, or even years.  It is in cases like this that fear is absolutely useless.  Someone might be afraid of having enough money to pay his bills the next month, yet that fear is pointless.  He must take action to deal with reality.  If he is paralyzed by his fear and takes no action, then his fear actually brings about the reality that he so desires to avoid.  No action means no money which means no paid bills.

Fear is unhealthy:

If someone never leaves his home because he is afraid he might be hit by a car, mauled by a dog, or catch a disease we would all recognize that he has a severe phobia and probably requires some sort of treatment.  Such a person may avoid the dangers of dogs, cars, and diseases, but he does so at the cost of his life.  He wants so badly to live, yet his fear keeps him from really living.

Fear is a tool to control:

Fearmongers peddle predictions of bad futures while at the same time offering solutions that only they can provide.  Those solutions always cost you something.  Sometimes fearmongers operate on a small scale, like the dishonest mechanic who tells us we need to get an unnecessary $500 repair done now or risk a possible $5,000 repair down the road (all the while hoping that we do not have enough mechanical savvy to know that he is a liar).

Other times fearmongering comes from leaders looking to consolidate power.  They predict a bad future unless we do what we are told.  “Our enemies will run over us unless you give me power!”  “The weather will turn bad unless you live the way I tell you to!”  “You will get sick unless you do what I say!”  We must be very careful when such dire predictions of a possible future require us to surrender liberty.  Yet decisions made in fear are seldom done with care.

Sometimes fear is used to spread hate as a means of control.  A classic example of this is the fear that people in some other group are systemically trying to hurt you.  You are told you should fear them, never talk to them, avoid them, hate them, and call anyone in your group who does interact with them by some nasty name.  This example is often used by people who cannot refute a thought someone presents.  Rather than considering the point, they attack the race, country, economic status, religion, or appearance of the person making it.  Fear leading to hate is a powerful and insidious means of control.

Fear makes us miserable:

The final reason we should be not be afraid is that it just makes us miserable.  It does nothing to make our lives better, and it saps all the joy from us.  This alone should be a reason to not be afraid.

What are we to do about it?

For one thing, stop fearing.  Recognize that there are some things in life you can control and others that you cannot.  There is no reason to fear things you cannot control because no amount of fear will give you control over them.

Here is a practical example that might help.  I have no control over the weather.  If I hear that a hurricane was coming to the place where I live there would be no sense in fearing the hurricane as I am powerless to stop it.  At the same time, I do have control over whether or not I board up my widows, secure my belongings, and leave town until it blows over.  Courage can lead to helpful decision making and swift action to deal with threats.  Fear adds nothing and just slows us down.

Yet we will often still succumb to fear in times like this.  This leads me to my second point: Trust God.

God does not promise that everything will go the way we want it to, but we do know that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Joshua 1:9, quoted above, tells us “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged,” but then it ends with a comforting promise, “for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

This is the philosophy of courage.  Do not fear.  You gain nothing by doing so.  Turn to God.  Be strong and courageous.

In my 41 years on Earth I have visited 31 countries and met people from every inhabited continent.  I know of many people who regret times they lived in fear (me included).  I have yet to meet one person who regrets living courageously.

"Even though I walk

    through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil,

    for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

    they comfort me."

-King David of Israel

The Smell of Asphalt

On a recent walk with Sasha we passed by a house that had a freshly blacktopped driveway.  As the smell of asphalt wafted through the air, an all too familiar memory came to mind.

I had never shared this memory with anyone before, so it seemed fitting that I should tell it to my wife of 19 years.  When I was a 5-year-old boy, my Dad’s employer had a company picnic at a local amusement park.  There were rides, balloons, and a clown named Putz.  I suspect that the amusement park had recently repaved their parking lot because every time I smell fresh asphalt, I am taken back to that happy memory from over thirty-five years ago.

After relaying that story to Sasha, she told me that whenever she smells asphalt it reminds her of communism.  Apparently, the communists used the stuff a lot to pave whatever needed paving.

It is the exact same smell, but to me it means a fun summer’s day at an American amusement park where the dreams of a child come true.  For her it means the oppression of socialism and a childhood in a country where speaking outside of the party line lead to serious consequences. 

I am certain that the men who laid that asphalt in that driveway were not thinking that they were helping people relive happy childhood memories.  Neither did they think that they were spreading the scent of socialist oppression.  Asphalt smells like asphalt.  It only has one smell.  Yet that fragrance meant something completely different to Sasha than it did to me.

Our conversation reminded me of something written by a first century Jewish scholar named Paul to a church in the Greek city of Corinth.

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.  For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.”   (II Corinthians 2:14-16 ESV)

I hope to live my life in such a way that I give off the fragrance of Jesus.  I want others who see me and talk with me to know who I am in Him.  Yet I recognize that, though the fragrance of Jesus may be pleasant to some, it is not to others.  If I live a life walking with God, I am going to be attractive to some people while simultaneously being repulsive to others.  The same is true of anyone who walks in obedience to Christ.

What should we do about this?  We want people to see and experience the joy of salvation through our Lord.  How do we share truth knowing that some will always be repelled by it?

The temptation creeps in to sweeten our scent.   If we apply enough perfume, our natural sent is masked to the point where everyone who comes in contact with us will find our presence pleasant.  The same can be done with the message of the gospel.  We can cover it with perfume and make people like what they smell, but they will not smell the truth.

We perfume the message by changing it to suit the desires of those around us.  In doing so, we attract people to us, not to Jesus.  We pander.  We do not proclaim.  We do not smell like death to the one group, but at the same time, we do not smell like life to the other.

Those who cover up the truth with smooth talk are useless at accomplishing anything of lasting good.

Our options are simple.  We can smell like the world, or we can smell like Christ.  If we smell like the world, we will be accepted for the frauds we are and become useless.  We will lead no one to Jesus and therefore we will lead no one to life.

If we smell like Christ, some will show us hate and some will show us love.  To some we will smell like death.  Yet in the end, some will find life in our Lord.

Do what is right.  Walk in obedience to God.  Lead people to life.

Lesson from the Sparrow

I sat in my yard and watched a sparrow hop around looking for seeds.  Her head was hardly higher than the blades of grass that surrounded her.  She was tiny, fragile, and vulnerable.  Yet she had plenty.

Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus delivered a famous speech we now call “The Sermon on the Mount.”  It was written down by one of his closest followers, a government worker named Matthew.

In it he addresses the topic of worry and anxiety:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

In another speech (recorded by a doctor named Luke) Jesus said something similar:

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

This sparrow in my yard was not a fool.  Had I so much as stood up she would have flown away to avoid danger.  Yet, I sensed no anxiety in her.  She did not look worried or even fearful as she confidently pecked away at her meal.

Picture from Wikipedia

We are so quick to worry.  We fear what our future will look like despite the fact that none of us will ever be in the future.

God is watching over you.  This does not mean that nothing bad will ever happen to you.  In fact, if you are following Jesus you are pretty much guaranteed to have trouble as He clearly stated, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  The comfort is that you do no need to be anxious.  You do not need to worry.  God is in control, “and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

Yet perhaps you are not convinced.  If the wisdom of Jesus and the writings of His early followers is not enough to get you to stop worrying, then look at your own life.  Reflect on the times you have worried.  Remember walking around with that ball of fear in your chest that made you feel sick.  Did all that anxiety help?  If so, then by all means, continue to be worried and let fear improve your life.  If not, perhaps you should listen to Jesus and take a lesson from the sparrow.

Well His eye's on the sparrow
And the lilies of the field I've heard
And He will watch over you and He will watch over me
So we can dress like flowers and eat like birds

-Rich Mullins