Proverbs 12:22

Lying lips are abomination to the Lord.

On lying

Man excels the rest of the creatures in the power of communicating thoughts one to another. The creatures are taught, by nature, almost immediately, how to supply their wants. But we are purposely formed to need and to give help in everything, through the whole of our days; and therefore some ready and extensive method of signifying mutually whatever passes within our minds was peculiarly necessary for us. Without this no person would have more knowledge of anything than he could attain of himself. The pleasure and benefits of society would be reduced to a narrow compass, and life hang upon our hands joyless and uncomfortable. Articulate speech, our more distinguishing property, is our chief medium of intercourse. As every blessing may be fatally misused, so there is hardly any bad purpose which language may not be made to serve. It can be turned from its original design of giving right information to those with whom we converse to the opposite one of leading them wrong.

I. What things are to be reputed lies and what not.

1. Since actions and gestures, as well as words, may be employed to express what we think, they may also be employed to express what we do not think, which is the essence of a lie. Some of our actions are naturally significative. But we have never consented to make our actions in general signs of our intentions, as we have our words. If persons interpret our actions they may deceive them not. Such actions as have no determinate sense appropriated to them by agreement, explicit or implied, can be no violations of sincerity; but such as have are subject to just the same rules with words; and we may be guilty of as gross falsehoods in the former as in the latter.

2. Words having acquired their significations by the mutual acquiescence of mankind may change them by the same method. Illustrate by words”humble” and “servant.” The high-strained expressions of civility which are so common, however innocent now, proceeded originally from a mean and fawning and fallacious disposition in those who began them, and tended to nurse up vanity and haughtiness in those to whom they were addressed. As for phrases, of which custom hath changed or annihilated the signification, though, after this is done, they are no longer lies, yet they were lies all the time it was doing; and every new step taken in the same road will be a new lie till everybody finds it out and learns the fashionable interpretation of it. Great care must therefore be taken to prevent our “language running into a lie.”

3. As to all figures of speech, fables, allegories, feigned histories, and parables, those for instance of our blessed Saviour, and others in Scripture, intended only to convey instruction more agreeably or efficaciously, there is evidently no room to condemn these as deceits. But the case is widely different when persons, with all the marks of seriousness, affirm what they will afterwards despise and ridicule others for believing. These are plainly designed falsehoods, and in a greater or less degree, injurious ones. This is “foolish talking, and jesting not convenient.”

4. Concerning ambiguous phrases, which in one acceptation express our meaning truly, but in another do not, it must be observed that when we are bound, by promise or otherwise, to declare what we know or believe in any case, we are bound to declare it in such terms as are likely to be well understood. And even when we are not thus bound we should speak of things, if we can safely, with plainness and simplicity. There may be reason for reservedness towards some persons, even in trifles. When silence will not conceal a thing which ought to be concealed, it must be allowable to speak upon the subject in such a manner as to leave that part in obscurity which is not fit to be revealed. When we design only to keep a man ignorant of a fact it is his own fault if he will also believe a fancy. But if we go further, and lay snares for him; if we give assurances which, in their obvious and universal acceptation, are false, but only have a latent forced construction, in which, after all, they just may be true, this is equivocation, and cannot be defended.

II. The pleas which are urged to justify some sorts of direct lying. Some say that speech was given to mankind solely for their common benefit; nor consequently is it ever used amiss when it contributes to that end. This opinion they try to confirm by several instances of falsehoods which good persons are recorded in Scripture to have uttered knowingly. But some actions may be praised in holy writ on the whole without the least intention of approving the circumstances of insincerity, or other imperfections, with which they were accompanied. Others say that because of our mutual relation we ought to consult our mutual advantage; and where adhering to truth will not promote this, falsehood may be justly substituted. But we feel a natural reluctance in our consciences to lying and deceiving, as such, without looking forward to consequences. What are those instances in which, on balancing the two sides of the account, violation of truth is more beneficial than detrimental to mankind? But what can be said in relation to cases of peril to property or life? Is falsehood then justifiable? The only answer is that the cases are rare, and extreme, and even then doubtfully wise. Better suffer than lie. Take the case of the sick. Prevarication is sometimes even necessary. It must be owned that, in many of the above-mentioned cases there are sometimes difficulties, with which we have much more cause to pray God that we may never be tried than to be confident that we shall judge and act rightly if we are. But the arguments, were they ever so specious, for the lawfulness of fraud in seemingly harmless cases, can never prove it lawful in others of a nature quite contrary. The extreme danger of men’s proceeding in falsehood to very pernicious lengths, if once they begin, is a most unanswerable objection against its being permitted in any degree at all. (Abp. Secker.)

Lying

It is possible to speak against truth and yet not lie, provided we speak in good faith. It is speaking in bad faith, with conscious purpose of deceiving, that is a lie. Take the text on the broad general ground that lying is abomination to the Lord. Take the word in its honest downright form; do not let us shelter ourselves under smooth expressions--equivocation, prevarication, dissembling, simulation, untruthfulness--longer words, by which men try to take the edge from unpleasant facts--but which all in the end point to the same thing, a want of sincerity. Whatever you may do to soften off the epithet and description, there remains the text in all its decision and boldness. Nor is the verdict of man less decisive. Even while they practise it men condemn lying. Perjury is a crime branded by all governments, heathen as well as Christian. We apply the word “true” to all that is good and worthy. Is not our instinctive feeling that truth is the object most worthy of attaining? Its opposite must be proportionally odious. Consider the mischief which lying occasions to society. It is by mutual confidence, by faith in the honesty and purity of each other’s motives, that we live on together. No peace can be where there is no trust. See some of the sorts of lies which prevail nowadays.

1. White lies--lies glossed over and decorated by fashion; specious habits of talk, and conventional phrases; justified by necessity, expediency, or the like.

2. Slander. This is not peculiar to our age--witness the cases of Mephibosheth, Naboth, Jeremiah, the blessed Lord Himself, all victims of false accusation--but it is not rare in our age.

3. Lies to screen our faults. These are more natural and intelligible. To escape the consequences of a sin by hiding it seems a tangible advantage; but is it? Do we gain by cloking one fault with another? Every right-minded man would have a thousand times more pity for one who owned his fault and asked forgiveness than for one who tried to elude detection. We are disgusted with the man who has no self-respect, and no respect for us, who in using a lie deems us simple enough to be cajoled, and considers the doubling of his sin preferable to owning himself in the wrong. This is said of sins against our fellow-men: how much more forcibly it applies to sins against God.

4. Two other modes of lying frequently come before the clergyman.

(1) In asking for relief there are those who simulate and exaggerate their poverty to move the hearts of the charitable.

(2) In the publication of the banns of marriage, false addresses are frequently given, and that with an assurance perfectly startling. Then let us see to the truthfulness of our hearts and lips. If we are the children of God, members of Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, we must be truthful. If you are tempted to utter words of deceit, remember how abominable such things are to the Lord, and how they bar up impenetrably the gates of heaven, which fly open at the approach of truth. (G. F. Prescott, M.A.)

The nature, malignity, and pernicious effects of falsehood and lying

Nothing in nature is so universally decried, and yet so universally practised, as falsehood. A mighty, governing lie goes round the world, and has almost banished truth out of it. The greatest annoyance and disturbance of mankind has been from one of these two things, force or fraud; and force often allies with fraud. It is the tongue that drives the world before it. It is hard to assign any one thing but lying, which God and man so unanimously join in the hatred of; and it is hard to tell whether it does a greater dishonour to God, or mischief to man.

I. The nature of a lie, and the proper essential malignity of all falsehood. A lie is an outward signification of something contrary to, or at least beside the inward sense of the mind. It is a false signification, knowingly and voluntarily used. There are said to be three different kinds of lie.

1. The pernicious lie, uttered for the hurt or disadvantage of our neighbour.

2. The officious lie, uttered for our own, or our neighbour’s advantage.

3. The ludicrous and jocose lie, uttered by way of jest, and only for mirth’s sake, in common converse. The unlawfulness of lying is grounded upon this, that a lie is properly a sort of species of injustice, and a violation of the right of that person to whom the false speech is directed.

II. The pernicious effects of lying.

1. It was this introduced sin into the world; and by lying sin is still propagated and promoted.

2. To it is due all the misery and calamity that befalls mankind. That which brought sin into the world necessarily brings with it sorrow.

3. Lying tends utterly to dissolve society. The band that knits together and supports all compacts is truth and faithfulness. Without mutual trust there could not only be no happiness, but indeed no living in this world.

4. Deceit and falsehood most peculiarly indispose the hearts of men to the impressions of religion. The very life and soul of all religion is sincerity.

III. The rewards or punishments that will assuredly attend, or at least follow, this base practice.

(1) An utter loss of all credit and belief with sober and discreet persons.

(2) The hatred of all those whom the liar either has, or would, deceive.

(3) A final separation from God, who is truth itself. (R. South, D.D.)

The Bible warning against lying

Three reasons why we ought to mind this warning.

I. Because of what God thinks about it. There is hardly any form of wickedness against which God has spoken so often and so strongly in the Bible as He has against lying. To know what God thinks about lying should lead us to mind the warning against it.

II. Because of what men think of it. Somebody asked Aristotle what a man could gain by lying. His answer was “that no one will believe him when he speaks the truth.”

III. Because of the punishment which must follow lying after death. Whatever the effect of our lying in this life may be, it will soon be over. The consequences must follow us after death. (R. Newton, D.D.)

Schoolboy honour

There can be no question that men and women would be far better than they are if they had been better brought up. If men and women were themselves better, they would give their children a higher moral training. I feel bound to bring forward a definite charge of neglect of parental and tutorial duty against parents and teachers in general. The charge is this: Parents and teachers too often either connive at, or openly encourage, what is called, in unconscious irony, “school-boy honour.” What can be said in favour of those sentiments out of which “school-boy honour” springs?

1. There is something inexpressibly petty and mean in tale-bearing; in the habit of running to a parent or master with every little complaint of personal injury or wrong inflicted. It is good for the young to learn to bear small wrongs and pains from each other, and to learn also how to settle their own quarrels.

2. There is something mean and cowardly in reporting on the sly the offences committed by others. This is bad for the informer, who grows into conceit and priggishness. The sly informer, the whisperer, is really a traitor. He plays and consorts on equal terms with the rest, who are altogether unconscious that they have a spy among them. Any one whose sense of duty leads him to “tell” must have the moral courage to warn the offender previously, to make his charge publicly, and to be willing to bear all the consequences of his conscientious act.

3. School-boy honour may represent the noble sentiments of brotherhood and comradeship. Under existing circumstances, the caste, or class-feeling, or clanship among boys, demands some principle of mutual loyalty and defence. Boys ought, within certain limits, to stand by each other. I give all the praise it deserves to school-boy honour. But in its practical working, and in the extremes to which mutual protection is carried, it is full of evil, corrupting to the morals, and tending to obliterate the fine sense of right and wrong which is often native to the boy’s mind.

(1) This code of honour requires or enjoins deceit and falsehood. Boys may not lie to one another, but it is a recognised principle that they may lie to their masters.

(2) The code as generally maintained is not only not favourable to morality, but directly and falsely subversive of it. Its main use is to shelter culprits and wrong-doers, and mainly for offences distinctly and grievously immoral, such as lying and brutality, and even worse things than these. When boys are fully aware of an immoral and vicious habit prevailing amongst them, and when they know it cannot be put down by themselves, it should be a real point of honour with them first to protest against it as unworthy even of boys, then to threaten to report a repetition of the offence openly and courageously to those authorities who may know how to deal with it. There should be no sly tale-bearing. (C. Voysey.)