Running To Win

Dave McCallister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. For some, telling a white lie is okay, but it's not okay with God. Believers need to tell the truth if they want to win in the race of life. Lying violates prime directive number nine in the Bible, and losing that lying tongue is where we're headed on today's broadcast. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer in court witnesses pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Sounds like a good idea for all of life.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, obviously, Dave, this really illustrates how important the Ten Commandments are. When the Bible says we should not bear false witness, we have to recognize that a partial truth is oftentimes a whole lie. And you're right. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived our lives with a commitment of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But I'm also reminded of the scriptures that say, let God be true and every man a liar. In other words, if we don't accept what God says, we in a sense also are lying. Wow. How important these truths are.

And the reason I've written the book entitled Why Holiness Matters is I want people to understand the relevance of the Ten Commandments. I want them to understand it in light of the New Testament so that we might be guided on our spiritual journey. And for a gift of any amount, we're making this book available for you. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or you can phone us at 1-888-218-9337. Be assured of this. The Ten Commandments apply and they go directly to our hearts.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: I think it was Diogenes who made himself very unwelcome in Athens by going through the city in the middle of the day with a lantern, which he shone in the faces of people, looking for an honest man. People probably thought he was a little bit loony. In the 20th century, we would say that perhaps his dipstick didn't touch the oil. But maybe he had a point because basically you and I are dishonest. We are born with a bent toward deception. All of us are. In order to protect our reputation or to get money or for one reason or another, usually to make ourselves look good, we break the commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness.

I've never yet met a person who has told me that he hasn't told a lie. I can imagine somebody might do that today, and if they do, I'll simply say it's one more to write down in their ledger, right? Never forget when I was about 10. Those of you who are in that age bracket, listen carefully. I was brought up on a farm and my father came to me one day. It was my responsibility to feed the chickens at 5:00 every afternoon. I walked into the garage. He asked me whether or not I had fed the chickens.

It was somewhat after 5:00. Oh, I knew I had not done it with any degree of regularity, and so I lied. I said, yes, I had. My father believed me. He believed me. 10 or 15 minutes later I I left the garage and I went and I got that bucket full of wheat and I went and fed the chickens. I remember how good it felt. You know, usually we talk about guilt associated with sin. Well, I don't remember guilt. I just knew it felt so good because I had lied, I had gotten away with it, the chickens were fed, nobody had incurred any harm as a result of it.

And I remember to this day thinking to myself all summer I'm going to do things this way. If I'm asked, I'm going to make myself look good, I'm going to lie and then I 'm going to do it later. So about a week later, I was asked again, did you feed the chickens? I said, yes. Well, of course I didn't leave immediately to go do what I had forgotten to do. That would look too obvious. I waited about 10 or 15 minutes and then I went and I did it. But guess what? I was seen feeding the chickens.

Now, if you 10-year-olds are still with me, you have to understand that I belong to another generation. When my parents found things like that out, they applied the Board of Education to the seat of learning. That was in another generation, you understand. Because the Bible says, thou shalt not bear false witness, and God is a God of truth, and he is interested in us being people of truth. Now, when that commandment was given, thou shalt not bear false witness, it actually referred to perjury. That is to say a false witness at a court of law.

But I want you to turn with me today to the sixth chapter of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter six, where it's very interesting. There are two different kinds of lying that are spoken about, that which would take place in a court of law and that which takes place in normal conversation. And God says he hates both. Proverbs chapter six verse 16. There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to him. Here they are. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among his brothers.

Did you notice that lying is mentioned twice? Verse 17, haughty eyes, a lying tongue. Verse 19, a false witness who utters lies. Verse 19 is talking about going to court and you have bear a false witness in the presence of someone. And verse 17 is talking about the person who lies in casual conversation. God says, I hate lying. I hate lying. Now, what I'd like to do today is to give you three ways that we can break that commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. Three different ways that we can do it. First of all, we can break the commandment by what we say, by what we say.

Here I'm thinking of course about the actual lies. We're in a situation where a lie looks good or would make us look good and so we go ahead and do it like that proverbial school boy who said that a lie is an abomination unto the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble. So we're in difficulty and what do we do? We lie. We are filling out an application for a job and we tell a lie to make ourselves look good. God sees it. God hates it. Back in the good old days when I was teaching at Moody Bible Institute and I would teach ethics, the students always used to ask me this question.

They'd say, is it ever right to lie? Then they'd give this illustration. Suppose that you were a person who was hiding missionaries and the communists. It was always communists. I don't know why, but the communists come to the door and they point a gun at you and they say, tell us where the missionaries are. Now, the question is, would you lie and say you don't know or would you tell the truth? Would you say what you do is you go up the stairs and then just to the left there's a closet there. Two of them are in there.

And then you go to the other side and we have some hiding in another room off the den. What would you do? Well, my response, you know, used to be, I don't know first of all what I would do if I would have a gun pointed in my head, at my head. I have never yet had that happen and I realized that statistically that was supposed to happen last July. But anyway, I do know this, that if I were to tell a lie, I believe that I would have sinned even if I lied under those conditions.

Because whenever you tell a lie, you are actually indicating a lack of faith. You say, well, wouldn't it be better to lie than to have missionaries dead? Don't you realize that even if I were to tell the truth and those missionaries were killed by the communists, I would not be responsible for the death of those missionaries, the communists would be. We don't believe that God would be thrown off base if somebody happened to tell the truth. Can you just imagine God in heaven wringing his hands and saying, oh, good night. Ugh. I intended that those missionaries live another 10 years.

And now look at what Lutzer did. He told the truth. Ugh. What are we going to do? Of course, God can keep people alive as long as he wants even if we tell the truth. God hates lying. One of the ways that we can break this commandment is by what we say. And here I'm talking about lying, I'm talking about exaggeration where somebody says, you know, my wife is never on time. That's probably not true. Think back many years ago when you were going to take her shopping and you promised her a new dress. Or a wife who says, my husband never picks up his clothes.

Watch it. Watch it. Think back when you received an unexpected knock on the door on an early Saturday morning and he picked up his clothes. So don't say he never never picks up his clothes. That's exaggeration. And of course under this I could put people who brag, people who toot their own horn. Don't you don't you wish that sometimes when you met people like that you'd have the courage to tell them, remind them of the fact that it 's not the whistle that pulls the train. I think we've all had those temptations. Exaggeration, distortion where we say something by innuendo.

In other words, a man on a ship, a mate who didn't get drunk very often, but one day he did and the captain wrote in the log book, the mate God drunk today. The mate said, take that out. Captain said, no. He wrote it down. So the next day the mate was keeping the log book and he decided to write in it, the captain is sober today. Well, he was telling the truth. But you do get the implication. And then slander. Slander, that's when you demean the reputation of other people by what you say, whether you are telling a falsehood because of the lack of investigation in the matter or whether you are even telling the truth.

Listen, you can tell the truth and be guilty of slander. If you're telling the truth to people who are not part of the problem nor part of the solution and what you are doing it for is to simply demean the reputation of some believer in their eyes. That is slander. Now, I want you to turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter three. 1 Timothy chapter three. Very interesting sidelight as to what God says about slander. 1 Timothy chapter three. Notice what it says regarding the wives of deacons. Deacons, take note, share this passage with your wives if it applies.

1 Timothy chapter three. It says women, probably the wives of the deacons, though it may also refer to deaconesses. Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips. That's a pretty good translation. But you know what the Greek says? Not diabolos. That's what it says, not devils. It's the word for devil that is used 40 times in the New Testament. It says women should not be slanderers. That's the meaning of the word diabolos. And so what he's saying is is don't be slandering because when you slander somebody, you are doing Satan's work. He is a slanderer.

And that's the meaning of the word devil. So you see it's not just speaking the truth about someone. Even speaking the truth can be slander if you are causing their reputation to be tainted in the minds of those to whom you speak. And God says he hates it all. He hates it. It's the devil's work. You know, it's wonderful to know that if you have been the victim of slander, and I suppose all of us have been at times, there is a verse in Psalm 31 that says this regarding the believing person. It says, thou dost hide them in the secret place of thy presence from the conspiracies of man.

Thou dost keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues. Isn't that great? God guards those who are victimized by the strife of tongues, rumors that will not subside, false rumors. Let's Psalm 31 verse 20. So one of the ways that we can break the commandment is by what we say. Secondly, we can break that commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness by what we do. We talk about doing the truth. For example, cheating is a form actually of misrepresentation and bearing false witness. And I feel sorry for people who have cheated in their past, who have never made it right because back in their minds there is always that knowledge that somehow they have done something wrong.

And in moments of revival, when the Holy Spirit of God really begins to do his work, they begin to realize that they've got to go back and make things right. That's why at schools, even such as Moody Bible Institute, sometimes there are students who cheat, who years later write letters saying, I cheated when I was there and I want to make that right. That's an indication of the work of the spirit of God who wants us to be totally honest and make things right as far as we possibly can. I remember one day in seminary we had to go to the board and write Greek verbs down and parse them.

And we were given drills. We'd go to the board and then we'd stand next to each other and we'd do it. And I was next to a guy who was just a Greek wiz. And sometimes I wasn't a Greek wiz. And I remember on one occasion looking out of the corner of my eye and seeing what he had written and I wrote down the very same words and the teacher commended me for being so accurate. And then I remember after that chapel service about two days later I was under such conviction. Have you ever been in a meeting where you just can't wait for it to get over?

You say, preach that sermon, get it over with, sing the song because I've got to do something. God has spoken to me. I was in such agony. I couldn't hardly believe it. Just the weight of guilt upon my shoulders and heart. And I went to the professor and I explained to him what happened and we took care of it and what a load it is off a person's shoulders. Just writing a term paper where you have plagiarized. You know, plagiarism is when you steal from one author. If you steal from many, of course, then it's called research.

But just just writing a a term paper where you've plagiarized. And to know that you've handed it into the university and there is something wrong with it, that is dishonesty. You can also lie by what you do. Let's take for an example the misrepresentation that took place in Acts chapter five, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. We read this in our devotions at home last night with the children. And my children were really quite taken aback by the fact that the text doesn't say that they lied. What happened is in chapter four verse 36, Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, owned a tract of land, sold it, brought the money, laid it at the apostles' feet.

Chapter five tells the story of Ananias and Sapphira who also sold the property. They did the same thing. They kept back part of the price. Somebody says, well, wasn't that all right? Maybe they had financial need. Of course it was all right. Peter says in verse three or rather verse four, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? After it was sold, was it not under your control? You can do anything you want with it. You could have kept all the money. What did Ananias and Sapphira do that was wrong? The answer is they took money and they laid it at the apostles' feet, pretending that they were giving all that they had received from the land just like Barnabas had done.

That's what was so sinful. If they'd have given a part of it and said, now, this is only a part of it because we need money, Peter said, you have that right. He says it was yours. Even after you sold it, it remained your own. But the problem is you put the best face on it. You wanted to give the impression that you were spiritual, that you wanted to give the impression that you were generous. And Sapphira, you wanted to be elected to the women's society so everyone would think that you were godly. And because of that pretense, God says it's game over.

You're dead. You say, well, why doesn't God do that today? I think God was giving an object lesson to the church. What he was doing at the beginning of the church was to say that I hate pretense, I hate hypocrisy, I hate lying. And because these people agreed in their heart to lie through pretense, I will use them as an object lesson. And so Ananias dies, Sapphira dies. Both of them are wiped out. And Peter says to them, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Remember John chapter eight says that Satan is a liar and the father of lies.

His technique is lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. You know that sometimes wicked spirits actually speak through the mouths of people, especially when they are being dealt with. If a person is demonized because of some reason, perhaps dabbling in the occult. And one of the things that you know about wicked spirits is the only time you can believe them is when they have just told you that they have just been lying. They are liars. It is almost impossible for a demon to tell the truth. He would rather say something very evasive and general rather than telling the truth.

He hates truth.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: And yet my friend Jesus Christ said, for this cause I came into the world and for this cause I was born that I might bear witness to the truth. Isn't it wonderful that in the world of lies God has called us to tell the truth? That's why I've written a book entitled Why Holiness Matters. I want us to understand on one hand the severity of the law, but I also want us to understand the wonder of God's grace and how he can transform liars into truth tellers. For a gift of any amount, we're making this resource available for you.

I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'm going to be giving you some contact info. Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Don't let anyone tell you that because we are under grace and not under law, that the Ten Commandments have no bearing on how we should live. That is wrong. We must understand the proper use of the law. But at the same time, let us make sure that we pursue holiness. Once again, that contact info rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

The title of the book Why Holiness Matters.

Dave McCallister: It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Sometimes the language we use in evangelism is hard to find anywhere in the Bible. This is bothering Lionel who asks, I've heard many preachers say, ask Jesus into your heart or ask Jesus into your life. Is this biblical? If so, where is this found in the Bible? If it's not found in the Bible, what should we say instead?

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, good question there because no, it's not found in the Bible. And sometimes when we tell people to accept Jesus into their heart, if you're talking to children, I think that's unwise because children sometimes take it literally. In fact, I remember a little child asking, well, if Jesus comes into my heart, doesn't he get blood on him? Furthermore, the Bible doesn't talk about asking Jesus into our life. And the reason that the Bible doesn't is because that is not really the essence of salvation. Now, it's true that people have prayed prayers like that and they've been saved.

So I don't want to be too critical. But the best way to explain the gospel, it seems to me is to explain what Jesus Christ did on the cross and the resurrection and then speak about a transfer of trust. If you look at the gospel of John, for example, the word that is used over and over and over again is believe in to believe in Jesus. So I like to speak of a transfer of trust. Then you can talk about Jesus bearing our sin, Jesus being punished for us, taking the judgment that belonged to us, himself doing it.

And I think that's a better way to get at the heart of the gospel. Now, you can use the word received because it does say that in the gospel of John chapter one verse 12 as many as received him. And we can use that kind of language. But the way in which you described it, you're right. It's not found in the Bible and it might not be the best way to explain the terms of the gospel.

Dave McCallister: Thank you, Lionel, for that very perceptive question. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer, for answering it. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Among seven things God hates, the writer of Proverbs lists lying twice. That's top billing for a sin we all commit. To win in the race of life requires telling the truth. Next time on Running to Win, Pastor Erwin Lutzer takes us again to the ninth of the Ten Commandments.

We'll find out why lying is so prevalent and so destructive. And we'll see that it's possible to violate the command to tell the truth not just by what we say, but also by what we do. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's road map for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McCallister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.