25-06-26 - ‘Let’s Get Serious: Lying’

Continuing the Let’s Get Serious series, Hayley Guttman tackles the often-overlooked subject of lying. Drawing from both the Old and New Testaments, she explores why truthfulness reflects the very character of God, while deception, exaggeration, slander, and even so-called “white lies” damage our witness and grieve the Lord. With practical biblical teaching, this episode calls Christians to examine their hearts, repent where necessary, and pursue lives marked by honesty, integrity, and sanctification. As with the rest of the series, the focus is on challenging believers with solid biblical teaching rather than self-help, encouraging faithful obedience to Christ in everyday life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Well it is my pleasure to bring the message this week, which is always lovely to do so. I personally love it when my husband does it, but he says every now and then for me to uh bring the message, so it is a delight to be able to do that. And I just want to say about taking notes, I'm a massive note taker, so I've always got a pad for everything, and at church, no matter what, every Sunday I'm always taking notes. Even if I might have studied it myself as a minister and doing my own study, I think you can always learn something because the Bible, the more you know it, the more you realize you don't know it. You know, there's so much more depth to go into it. So we are in the middle of a series about um different subjects that is not often talked about. You know, we are real life ministers as well. We do have a church congregation physically, a church building and church congregation. And we love to bring the word in an uncompromising way, not just giving life coaching. So we really emulate that as well on our Thursday night show. So we've been doing a let's get serious talk, and the subjects we've covered so far is the Trinity, hell, gossip, sin and wrath, obedience, enduring suffering, and this week I'm going to talk about lying. Now, um, I was reading a bit of a study whilst I was getting ready, and it was saying that 90% of Americans admit that they have told a lie. And I just thought, surely the 10% are just lying that are saying they haven't lied. Everyone has lied at some point in life, and there are so many different types of lies, but I'm just gonna open up with Hosea 7, um, verses 1 and 2, and simply because that's where I was when I was reading my Bible today. And the main bit that I want to read out is here when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely, the thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside, but they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Um, now their deeds surround them, they are before my face. And this, just if we can keep that up there for a moment, the the line that says, This is God speaking, but they do not consider that I remember all their evil. And that really stood out to me. And I wanted to use that today in my sermon because how we live, how we behave, what we say, what we think about, all of that matters to God. And that is the basis by which God will, when we all stand before Him, when we, you know, we shed this mortal coil that we are all in, and we stand before God just one to one, doesn't matter who you're married to, doesn't matter who your parents were, just on your own accord, and God looks at our life and he looks at how we behaved, what we thought about, what we did in secret, um, the words that we spoke, it really matters to him. And lying is something that is a huge deal.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

There are so many types of lies, aren't there? There's like little white lies that so many people think it's actually okay. It's a little white lie, it's harmless, it's well intended, but it's still a falsehood. There's the omission of lying when it's like holding back key facts. Um context to make a deliberate impression and make yourself look better or make someone else look worse. There's outright fabrication or bold face lies, there's minimization, downplaying, the severity of a mistake to reduce the consequence, or exaggeration. All of these are lying. And many of the times we don't like to think of ourselves as doing anything that's wrong or sinful, especially when we've been Christians for a while. We think, you know, I'm I'm mature in my faith. But sometimes bad habits can arise and little tiny white lies or habitual things can come in. And we always like to encourage our congregation physically to make sure that our lives are holy before him and that we are trying to be holy because he is holy. That's right. And this is why we felt it was so serious, it's really important to bring uh a series about things that are not often spoken about because sometimes we think, well, everyone knows we shouldn't lie, so therefore everyone knows it. Let's move on to something more theological. Now, Jesus strongly condemned lying, and he taught us in Proverbs 12.22 um that it is totally contrary to his belief, to who he is. Lying lips, it says in Proverbs 12.22, are an abomination to the Lord. But those who act faithfully are his delight. Do you know the um do you know what abomination means, my love?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

It means like it's like, yeah, you know, an abomination. Help me out.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, no, and I didn't know if you might know something about the job.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

What do you mean about the in the in the Hebrew?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Well, this is what I Googled for abomination. Abomination in this context, with the Hebrew description, I didn't write down the Hebrew word, but it describes morally disgusting. So if we read that, lying lips are morally disgusting to Yahweh.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Strong words.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

But those who act faithfully are his delight.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

I think that's quite major.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

I want to be his delight.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah, don't you want to be his delight? Don't we want to be his delight? I think that's so precious if that's something that we focus on. I think our next scripture in Proverbs 6, 16 to 19 says there are six things that the Lord hates. Hate is a very strong word. Isn't it? Again, seven things that are an abomination, i.e., morally disgusting to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and a few other things. I'm just gonna leave it there with a lying tongue. So you kind of get what I'm saying. Um, the book of John actually goes further. When Jesus is telling the people, um he's talking to them, and he says in John 8, verse 44, and I think this is like really one of the strongest things. He says, You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, he does not stand in truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. My grandmother and my actually my mother used to say to me that her father said to her, Tell the truth and shame the devil. And I've always remembered that because if we make a habit of lying, you know, who is the father of lies? We do we want him to be the our father? Does do you know what I mean? Does that make sense what I'm trying to say, my love?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Absolutely, it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

So truth is central to Yahweh's nature, and Jesus taught his followers to be people of integrity. And in Matthew 15, which we have on the screen here, verses 18 and 19 says, but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality, theft, false witness, and slander. And sometimes we can rank sins, or sometimes we can be in a church, and we have had so many people who've come to our church and said, you know, they left this place because they felt judged for whatever thing that that that had happened in their past and might have got divorced or remarried and and were made to feel judged over that. And I've always thought, and Tim and I have always had this opinion that um isn't it funny that we kind of rank sins, but then a lot of people will overlook being a gossip or lying, even if it's a little white lie, and they will allow that. But actually, we need to be serious about the small things because you know, we would we are taught in the Bible that a little bit of yeast ruins the dough.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

It actually talks more about gossip and slander than a lot of things, actually, if we want to list, but there's no anyway, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Exactly, exactly. That's right. So it's a serious thing, it's a serious thing, and I think the biggest, biggest lesson for us is in Revelation, and it says this in Revelation 21, verse 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for all murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death. Strong words, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Strong words.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Um, and I don't want to sugarcoat it. We don't want to sugarcoat what the word of God says. And it's not to try and say, you know, or make God seem like he's like this big, bad, angry man um that's in the clouds like an angry Santa that I've heard you describe him as. You know, when people kind of see him as an angry person that just wants to smite us, but there is when you choose to live a righteous life, there is a process of wanting to live more like him, becoming more holy.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Sanctification.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Exactly, which we were just talking about this morning, weren't we? Sanctification.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Well, just now with the producer, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

It's been a long, it's been a long hour with the hot sweats.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So let's go to Ephesians 4 25, because this is a letter that Apostle Paul, who wrote to the book of the church in Ephesus, it says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Let's let's do that. Let's be people who actually make truth telling important. Let's take off falsehood. Let's be people, if there's anything that has convicted you, and you think actually I need to improve on that, it's not a condemnation, and I'm not bringing this as a condemnation. We all sometimes exaggerate, we all sometimes do things if we're not living intentionally. And the purpose of this series is to say, guys, we want the best for you. We want you to experience God fully. And essential requirement is be holy as I am holy, and try and pursue holiness as we allow the Holy Spirit into our lives to change us and change our fleshly human nature into something that reflects who Jesus is, and He never lied. And so I just wanted to invite you as we come to a close to really take a moment. We are going to have another song, and during that song, we um just like you to take a moment to seek God on your own and just to see if there is any deception in your own heart or if the Holy Spirit has um raised anything with you.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Because it's really important that just to get things right, if you feel like something is going on for you and that this has convicted you in any way, just to say sorry, repent, which means Lord, I'm sorry for that. I don't want to be a liar, I'm s I do know that I exaggerate sometimes, or I tell little white lies to get out of things. But actually, I want to be holy like you are holy. All we need to do is say sorry. He is slow to anger, he is compassionate, and he is quick to forgive.