Is Lying always wrong?

JailMinister---I'm with you on this one, buddy! Lieing to save life--I'd do it! Those who say they won't are lieing!! I'd make up the biggest believable lie to save the life of another person! Then I guess I'd suffer the consequences before the Bema seat--you know that verse that says that many will be beaten with many stripes and many with lesser----I believe in situations where I am forced to "lie or you die"--I would be in line for the lesser!! And I'd take it to save a life!

Brother David

 

This doesn't require lying, it simply requires silence.

~Lorelei

 

You kow your in truble when what you beleive is different then what God says in the bible. No where does the bible say it's ok to lie. You have the choice, simple as it may be, obey God, or disobey God. Those are your only choices.

 

So Katie, if someone was about to kill your child unless you told a small lie, you'd let them shoot?

Also, people don't always want the truth. As in "Honey, does this outfit make me look fat?"

 

God wants the truth, always. Thats all the discussion there needs to be.
You have the choice, obey, or disobey, it's your choice, God or not.

 

I guarantee---you get caught in a hot spot---you get caught with your job at risk---you'd get carnal just like everybody else would except Jesus! Now, I know that to lie is always the wrong thing to do but to say that you would never ever lie is a lie!

Blackbird

 

So are you trusting in your own sin to save your child, or do you truly believe that God is who He says He is and He will bless you for walking in the Spirit and speaking the truth? Who do YOU trust to save your child?

What if you "lie" and your child still dies? What if you had told the truth, could God have intervened? You would never know, would you?

These little scenerios are useless in this thread, but they are always everyone's justification for sin. The question is NOT what would YOU do? The question is, what Does God WANT us to do? If you think God WANTS you to lie, show me scripturally where He said lying, something he considers an abomination, is ok in His eyes. Not something He will forgive, but something He condones.

Scripturally lying is ALWAYS wrong. By using the "what would you do if" argument you are merely trying to justify sin in man's eyes. You could justify any sin this way. What if the person said you would live if you slept with the man? You have to pick death or adultery, which will it be? What if you can live if you kill another person? At what point do we say I would rather take death? You can NOT rationalize sin, you must always base your actions upon what God's Word says. To stray from that is to sin. Will God forgive that sin, yes, but is that an excuse to go ahead and do it? No.

~Lorelei

 

No one here is saying they would never do it, they are saying God never condones it.

If we all always just start sinning as soon as we get into a hot spot, do we really KNOW God? Can you really be saved if the moment one rough thing comes along we ALL automatically revert back to sin to solve the problems in our lives???

No, sorry, this statement is false. Though there are some people to whom this applies, there are many who trust in God, no matter what the circumstances. It's a shame that you have walked your entire Christian life without meeting any of them. It is a shame that you have never read of those who stood for truth in spots so hot they were incinerated to death. Their flesh burned, their bodies a pile of ashes, all because they didn't get carnal just like everybody else.

To have a God that has no power over any of our circumstances in life, what kind of God is that? Why worship a God that can do nothing for you when things get "hot"? Why not just worship your lies, they seem to do more for you than God does.

~Lorelei

 

Please show me how you arrived at this. Was lying the ONLY way their lives would be saved? Kind of hard to speculate about something that did not happen. We as humans like to play "If....then..." games like we know 100% for sure what will happen. We tend to leave God out of the situation and underestimate His power and instead rely on our own finite knowledge and power. Lying, to me, seems to show a lack of faith in God and respect for Him.

God worked in spite of their lying. God did not bless Rahab because of her lying. Were the men that were hidden involved with her lying? What was the basis of her being spared? Because she lied? No. Look at Joshua 2:14, 17-20. Also, look at Joshua 6:17. It tells you why Rahab was spared. "Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent." (NIV) This says nothing about lying. Verse 25 reiterates this. You assume lying was the only way possible, but I fail to see why your assumption is valid. The reason she was spared was because of the oath that was made, not the lying. Hebrews 11:31 reiterates this as well, "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient." (NIV) This says nothing about her lying. She had faith in the Lord and upheld her end of the oath, that is why she was blessed. James 2:25 says she was considered righteous because of her action showing her faith in God. Does not mean lying is okay? No. Her action of hiding showed her faith, however incomplete her knowledge.

As to the midwives, why were they blessed? Exodus 1:21 sheds some light on this, "And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own." (NIV) Again, this says nothing about their lying. It is clear that God blesses the faith, not the actual lying. Lying is not condoned (in the sense of being approved) in Scripture; God works in spite of it.

I find it amusing, and troubling, that so many try to justify their lying, no matter their circumstance. First, if you think you have to lie, why get into the circumstance? And if you are in it already, how do you KNOW what will happen if you choose this or that? Where is faith in God? Is He not bigger than the circumstance? Can you say for certain that if you did not lie that the circumstance would result how you thought it would?

I say all this not as a perfect person, but more as an idealist. God calls for us to be holy and perfect. Lying is neither. I do not claim to have the faith to say that I would never lie in a given circumstance. My faith in the Almighty may waver and I may rather choose to trust in my power. But I do know that if God blesses the outcome it is not because of my lying but rather in spite of it. I do know that my lying would be wrong, no matter what.

In the Lord Jesus Christ,
Neal

[ June 24, 2003, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: neal4christ ]

 

Neal, Excellent post.

 

Neal,
It is pretty simple to see that the lies that the Hebrew mid-wives and Rahab told were what led to the innocent people they were protecting being spared. If you don't want to believe this, that is your business. I believe that the Bible is very clear on this matter.

 

Rahab did not know the law, she was not under the law. Here is why Rahab was blessed. It was her faith in God, a God that most of her people rejected. A faith that she was not raised with, but believed anyway.

She was not blessed for her lies, she was blessed in spite of them. To say it any other way is to add to the word of God. It never says that telling the lie was the reason they were blessed. Coming to that conclusion would prove God inconsistant with his own teaching that lies are an abomination to Him. Does God mean what He says or doesn't he? Re-read all of those verses that say what God thinks of lying. The Bible MUST be consistant if we are to trust it at all.

~Lorelei

 

What kind of logic is this? God forgives sins (only those under the blood of Christ) but never does he say that sin is acceptable. It is either forgiven by the blood of his son, or it is judged and the person is eternally punished for it.

As it has been proven scripturally, it was their faith in spite of their sin that caused them to be blessed, not the sin itself. As I mentioned above. If this statement is true then God Himself is a liar (and it is impossible for God to lie). God said lying is a sin, an abomination to Him. God not only wants truth, He IS Truth.

God does forgive the lie, God is merciful and understands our weaknesses, but he never condones it. We are alive because of his mercy and grace and our sins are forgiven because of the blood shed by His Son, Jesus Christ. Never because we sin under a circumstance that He made it necessary for us to lie. God is more powerful than any circumstance we are in, at least my God is.

~Lorelei

 

Again, I must ask, is lying the ONLY way that could have happened? We will never know what could have happened because they chose to lie. Like I said, God worked in spite of that. Can't God use a less than perfect situation for His purpose? He didn't force them to lie. And I said nothing about believing that they lied. I believe it, God's Holy Word says so. But it is clear as to why God blessed them.

"And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own." Exodus 1:21, NIV

So is lying ever alright? Absolutely not. Can God work in spite of it? Absolutely. Like I said before, we like to play "If...then...." games like we know what will happen for each choice we can make. How arrogant of US (me included). Only God is all-knowing. Only He is all-powerful. Yet we choose the distant second best by relying on our finite knowledge and strength rather than His.

May the Lord Richly Bless You,
Neal

 

How do you know that God blessed her lying rather than her faith? Couldn't God work in spite of her lying?

Bless You,
Neal

 

But right after they lie, the Bible records verse 20 -- "So God dealt well with the midwives." (ESV) It is as if they expressed their fear of God by lying to protect the male children.

Rahab and the mid-wives are not the only difficult examples, though. No one has interacted with the following passages that I mentioned earlier:

1 Sam. 16:1-2 -- God instructs Samuel to use a ruse to deceive Saul as to the true intent of his trip to Bethlehem.

Joshua 8 -- God instructs Joshua to set an ambush for the men of Ai in which the Children of Israel "pretended to be beaten before them." (8:15, ESV)

2 Kings 6:18-20 -- Here Elisha, apparently with God's approval since God answered his prayer and blinded them and did not rebuke him, tells an untruth for the purpose of deceiving the Syrians.


I'm not introducing these passages to provide support for lying for convenience. I think God allows for lying in VERY FEW circumstances, war being the primary exception. Let me ask a question I asked earlier, if killing is OK in war why isn't lying OK in war, especially when God directed Joshua to deceive the people of Ai?

Andy

 

Jailminister,

I will just chime in here with my opinion based
on what I see from the scriptures.

I would compare lying to killing. They are both
very serious things to God and they should not have to happen. They are both wrong most of the time but there are rare instances when they are right.

If I kill a person for any reason other than self defense(or defense of my family or another innocent life) or in the service of the defence of my country than it is not sin(murder).

If I lie to save someone's life as Rahab did with the spies, and as those who did to save Jews in Nazi Germany that is right. As Josh Mcdowell said in his book - Love is always right the greater love always wins out.

Just a though.

IFBReformer