Why You Lie Gen.18:15 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

This lesson examines, from the Bible, why you lie.  You lie because:

You are afraid of people knowing the truth – Gen 18:15 – Sarah laughed when she heard the Lord proclaim that she was going to have a son – when the Lord asked Abraham why Sarah laughed, Sarah heard and denied saying, “I laughed not” – and the Lord tells you why she laughed, “she was afraid” – when you are afraid you will lie, too.

You don’t want to be punished for a wrong you have done – Gen 4:9 – When the Lord asked Cain where Abel was, Cain replied, “I know not” – Cain most certainly knew because he was the one who murdered Abel – but Cain didn’t want to be punished – notice that when he was punished, he complained that his punishment was greater than he could bear [Gen 4:13] – you will lie, too, when you think lying might keep you from being punished.

You want something you couldn’t get by telling the truth – Gen 27:19 – Jacob lied to his father and said that he was Esau – then he lied when he said that he had done as his father bade him – then he lied when he called the goat meat venison – then he lied when he said that the Lord had brought it to him [Gen 27:20] – then he lied again when he answered affirmatively that he was Esau [Gen 27:24] – you will lie, too, when lying gets you something that you couldn’t have by telling the truth – and you’ll keep lying even if your lies are compounded in the deception as long as you think you can get the thing you are not supposed to have [2 Ki 5:22-25 Gehazi lied to Naaman and Elisha about the silver and the garments].

You want to keep something you would lose by telling the truth – Acts 5:1-10 – Ananias and Sapphira lied about the price of the land so that they could privately keep back part of the proceeds – they wanted to hang on to some of it – you will lie, too, when you are in possession of something that you believe you might lose if the truth were known – you will lie to keep it.

You want people to believe something about you that isn’t true – 2 Thes 2:4 – during the Tribulation, the devil pretends that “he is God” – pride is the root cause of this lie – the outward manifestation of this lie is hypocrisy because he is pretending to be someone or something that he is not – today the world is filled with pretenders [2 Tim 3:13; Gal 2:4; Acts 20:30; Matt 7:15] – you will lie when you want people to believe that you are a Christian when you aren’t, or that you are a preacher called of God when you aren’t, or that you are spiritual when you aren’t.

You don’t want to accept the truth – Rom 3:4; 1 Jn 2:4 – when men are confronted with the truth and they don’t believe it, they lie to justify their unbelief – evolution is the lie to counter the truth of creation – religion is the lie to counter the truth of salvation – skepticism is the lie to counter faith in the truth of God’s words – self-righteousness is the lie to counter the truth of eternal damnation – and so forth – when you don’t believe the truth you will make up a lie to cover your unbelief – unfortunately, your lie doesn’t make the truth go away – you will face it.

You are a liar, plain and simple – Rev 21:8; Jn 8:44 – the Pharisees were liars just like the devil – they didn’t tell a lie and then suddenly become liars – they were liars and so that is why they lied – look at these examples of their lies – Jn 7:19-20, 25 they lied about seeking to kill Jesus – Jn 7:52 they lied about there being no prophet from Galilee; Jonah was from Galilee [2 Ki 14:25; Jos 19:10-13; Is 9:1; Matt 4:14-16] – Matt 28:11-15 they lied about the disciples stealing the body of Jesus – and on and on they lied – have you ever thought that the reason you lie is simply due to the fact that you are a liar?

Conclusion: these are seven Biblical reasons why you lie – you should study each very carefully to find out why you lie and then you should turn from your lying to the truth because God hates lying [Prov 6:17].