Lies & Deception

The French philosopher, Rene’ Descartes, gave definitions for truth and lies that I think are valuable.  He said truth is consistent.  It corresponds with reality and with all other things that are true.  Lies are inconsistent.  They sometimes will correspond to truth but never in all situations.  Let me give an example. 

When, as a child, you were caught breaking something and blamed it on your sibling, your lie was not consistent with reality.  Even if you were never caught, it was still a lie because it didn’t match reality.

Usually, lies aren’t that obvious, though.  Sometimes they are surrounded by truth.  We see this in false teachers.  They might tell you to believe God is one, that Jesus was raised from the dead, or even that we are saved by grace.  But, they have redefined these terms to mean something else entirely.  They might believe God is just one Person thus denying the Trinity.  Maybe they believe Jesus was raised as a spirit thus denying the bodily resurrection.  Or maybe they believe salvation by grace is not by grace alone but requires works or something else in order to be saved.  These are examples of redefining terms.  What we think they are saying isn’t what they mean.  So, it is our job to ask for definitions to reveal the truth.

Then there is an appeal to authority.  We see this in Acts 16:16-18:

¹⁶ As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

 This was a demon-possessed woman who was crying out endorsing the teachings of the apostles, Paul in particular.  She, however, was teaching something very different when not in the presence of the apostles.  She was fortune-telling.  Eventually Paul turned to her and cast out the demon.  “What was she doing wrong?” you might ask.  By endorsing the teaching of the apostles, she was giving credit to her own false teaching.  “I’m Like one of them” would be how her actions might be interpreted.  In doing so, she could draw away followers of the apostles into her deception.

Then there is a form of the corporate fallacy similar to  the appeal to authority we just looked at.  This is when someone might claim to be a Christian when much of their are teaching is false.  The fallacy comes when those outside the Christian community point to the false teacher as representative of Christians as a whole giving Christians a bad name.  We see this all the time.  We can combat it by presenting the truth when asked and discount the false teacher as what he is.

Sometimes it’s just that a pastor has decided to drop some of what the Bible teaches.  Dr. R. E. Torry told a story of running into an old friend from seminary.  Eventually, the conversation got around to each other’s doctrinal teachings.  His friend said, “Well, I don’t teach on hell anymore.”  At this point, Torry got up in his face sticking his finger into his friend’s chest.  “Who can turn from warning the lost of the condemnation to come?” he shouted.  Many churches have followed suit of Torry’s friend and begun to preach only what tickles the ears of the congregation.  The Bible says we are to present the full Word of God.

There’s a story of a young man going off to Bible college.  Before he left, his father sat him down and said “Many don’t believe Jonah to be true.  Don’t let them take the book of Jonah away from you, son.” 

Upon graduation, the son returned home, and the first thing his father asked was “Did they take Jonah away from you?”  At which time the young man said, “Jonah isn’t even in your Bible, Dad.”  The father rifled through his Bible but couldn’t find the book of Jonah.  He stared blankly at his son.  “Dad, I cut the book of Jonah out of your Bible before I left, and you haven’t missed it in the four years I’ve been gone.  What is the difference between removing Jonah or never reading it?”  Once again, we are to teach the full Word of God.

Why is this important?

Satan has a very broad spectrum of lies he can tell while truth only has one path.  So many people fall from the Truth and embrace error simply because it sounds good.  This is true of Christians as well as the lost.  We need to be aware of the tactics the enemy uses to draw us away from the faith.  Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s something shocking, but our stand must be for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

So, if people around you are shocked their pastor ran off with one of the women in the church, or he simply doesn’t want to teach on hell anymore because he feels doing so would be too judgmental, watch out.  Remember, our stand is for the full teaching of the Word.  We shouldn’t be people followers but Bible followers.