And why do people lie? You don’t have to think too hard about it. It’s not rocket science here. If you want to boil it down, it comes down to this – it comes down to this desire: Man loves himself. It’s selfish what’s behind lies. It’s his own regard for himself. It’s man’s desire to be God. Lying displays man’s self-centeredness, his selfishness. Think about what goes behind lying. It’s his desire to be highly thought of, to be praised, to impress, to be important, to be thought well of, to shield himself from being thought negatively about. It’s to get his way. It’s to make himself appear the way he wants to appear. You study the anatomy of lies for yourself. Trace it out. You’ll always find that the purpose of lies is to protect oneself, to get something for oneself, to improve one’s self-importance. That’s where it comes from. You can always trace it back there. But, here’s the thing, man is deceived because the reality is – here’s the thing about telling a lie: Jesus said that everything done in secret is going to be shouted from the housetops. There is not a thing that is done that is not going to come out into the light. You see, man thinks he is doing well for himself, but he is not doing well. Because every lie that is told, it is going to be exposed. And there’s no hiding place. You may think that that lie is doing something favorable for yourself and giving you a certain image, making you feel a certain way, look a certain way, protecting yourself a certain way right now, but you are deceived because it’s only temporary.
This excerpt is from the full sermon, “Put Off Lying & Falsehood“.
