In this thought-provoking episode, Rick Hughes challenges listeners to reflect on the power of words. With references to Biblical teachings, Rick delves into the dangers of lying and the consequences it has for believers and their relationship with God. Listeners will be offered insights into the deceptive nature of the tongue, the sins it leads to, and how it can disrupt one’s spiritual journey.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick around. Won’t be long, just about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. But as always, no manipulation, which means we’re not gonna ask you for money. We’re not gonna try to con you into buying something. We’re not gonna ask you to join anything. We would like for you to simply listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify the plan of God for your life, and if that’s possible, if I can do that, and you want to, you could orient and adjust to the plan. That’s up to you. But your life, you got one shot at it. Somebody once said, God gave you two ends, one to sit with and one to think with. Heads you win and tails you lose. So I hope you’re thinking. I hope you’re listening. Let me remind you that our new book on the last class that Jesus Christ our Lord taught with his disciples is out. The very last few hours that he taught them. And that book is free if you want it. All you have to do is contact us, and Jack will give you the details on how to do that after the show. But the book is titled These Things, and I encourage you to get it. And also, if you’d like to hear this show again or any of our Flatline shows, you can always find them on our website, rickhughesministries.org, and they are all out there on daily podcasting also. The new show comes out on podcast every Tuesday morning. You can find it on most podcast apps like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartMedia, Amazon Music, and Radio Public. So that’s up to you. So there you go. Those are the announcements, the new book. And hopefully another book very soon, very soon. We’re working on it called God’s Grace in Aging. And I hope to have that out by the end of October. I think this is going to be a phenomenal book for those of us that are older, 50 and older. I think you will really like this book. All right. Okay, let’s get cranked up today. Show 948. That’s 948 Sundays we’ve been on the air across America and over 100 radio stations listening this morning. We’re going to talk about something that’s very personal. We’re going to talk about something that very seldom gets talked about. And we’re going to talk about lying. Liars. Lying. Being a liar. Listen to what the Bible says in James 3, 5 through 6. So too the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it has great pretensions. Think how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze. And the tongue is a fire. The tongue represents the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence, and it is set on fire by hell itself. The tongue. Lies come from the mouth, come from the tongue. In this episode of The Flatline, we’re going to discuss an area of sin that many believers overlook, and it’s called the sins of the tongue, or verbal sins. You might not even know you do them. It can include a lot of different things, but we specifically want to look at the sin of lying. and the effect of lying to individuals and lying to God. So let’s start with Proverbs 6, 16 and 19. Proverbs 6, that’s in the Old Testament, verses 16 through 19. Here is a list of seven sins that God hates. You didn’t even know that was in the Bible, did you? Seven sins God hates. quoting now from the Bible, Proverbs 6, 16 through 19. There are six things which the Lord hates. In fact, seven are an abomination to him. An arrogant eyes, that’s number one. A lying tongue, number two. Hands that shed innocent blood, number three, that’s a murderer. A right lobe that devises evil plans, or that’s anti-authority, sins of conspiracy and revolution. feet that run rapidly to evil, that’s a troublemaker, a false witness who utters lies, there’s the center of the tongue again, perjury, and a person who spreads strife among the brethren, or gossip, slander, maligning, judging. This person that does that also spread lies about other people. So out of those seven sins, how many of them have to do with lying? The lying tongue, a false witness, and those that spread strife among their brethren. Three of them have to do with sins of the tongue. Perhaps, just perhaps, and I’m willing to bet that you have been the victim of a liar’s revenge. And you probably know what it feels like to be falsely accused. God was falsely accused in the Garden of Eden when Satan tempted Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit. He tried to call God a liar in Genesis 3, 1 through 5. Now the serpent was shrewder than any of the wild animals that the Lord had made, and he said to the woman, Is it really true that God said you must not eat from the tree of the orchard? And the woman said, you must not eat from any trees of the orchard. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard, but concerning the fruit of the trees in the middle of the orchard, God said, you must not eat from that and you must not touch it or you will die. That’s not what God said, by the way. He said, don’t eat from it. He didn’t say anything about not touching it, but obviously you got to touch it to eat it. The serpent, Satan himself, said to the woman, surely you’re not going to die. For God knows if you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God and you will know good from evil. So he is calling God a liar. This is a.k.a. Lucifer himself, the fallen angel, calling God a liar. God lied to you. He didn’t want you to know that, he said. Notice that Satan is lying in order to manipulate Eve into doubting God’s veracity. In other words, God never lies. God always tells the truth. That’s part of the essence of God. He’s veracity. He’s absolute truth. As a matter of fact, our Lord Jesus Christ said that Satan is himself the father or the originator of all lies, and it started right there in the garden. In John 8, 44, you are of your father the devil, talking to the religious crowd, and the lust of your father you will do because he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth. There is no truth in him and when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own for he is a liar and the father of lies. That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ said about Satan. He’s a liar and the father of lies. So the Lord Jesus Christ is saying that Satan is the originator of lies. Let me give you a principle here. Liars, like Satan or any individual that lies, is a manipulator. They try to manipulate you and me in order to either cover up their transgressions or to deceive us into doing something that is counterproductive. So they’ll try to convince us by lying to us that we should do something or to cover something up. They did. Okay, in Genesis 4, 9, Cain lied to God in regards to his brother’s murder. Can you believe that? Cain said to his brother Abel in Genesis 4, 9, let’s go out into the field where they, and while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. And then in verse nine, the Lord God said to Cain, where is your brother Abel? Where is he? And Cain said, I don’t know. Am I my brother’s guardian? He knew exactly where he was. He had killed him and buried him. And he lied to God. Nobody, here’s the principle. You have to remember this. No one can lie to God and get away with it. And this means me and you. You may lie to your friends, you may lie to your spouse, you may lie to the police, and you may lie to the courts, but God knows what you did and he will hold you accountable. So the best thing you and I can do is to confess our sins to God as per 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So that’s the best thing we can do is confess it to God and move on with a clean heart before God. Now, let’s look at what happens when you try to lie to God. In Acts 5, 1 through 10, a man named Ananias, together with his wife, Sapphira, sold a piece of property. And with his wife’s full knowledge, with his wife’s full knowledge, she’s well aware of it, he kept back part of the money for himself, but he brought the rest and he put it at the apostles’ feet. Like, we’re doing a big deal here. We’re going to give you some money. I mean, this happens a lot of time in churches for Christmas offerings. And I’ve even heard of churches where people got up and took their watches off or their rings off and put it in the offering plate sometimes to get attention, to make it look like they’re really great, wonderful Christians. Well, this didn’t work. Peter said, Ananias, how is it that Satan has filled your heart so that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and kept some for yourself that you received the money from the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money yours at your own disposal? In other words, you didn’t have to say you’d given it all. You could have said, I’m going to give you 50%. But what made you think of doing such a thing like this? You have not lied just to human beings, that’s members of the church, but you lied to God. And when Ananias heard this, he fell down dead. And a great fear seized all who heard what had happened. And then some young men came forward, wrapped up the body and carried him out and buried him. Dead on the spot. Notice verse three again. Satan had influenced this man, and this is an indication that he had not dealt with some previous sin, so he was probably out of fellowship to begin with, and he was now vulnerable to satanic suggestions of deception in order to be recognized in the church. Let this be a warning to you. If you break fellowship with God and you fail to rebound, you are not protected from satanic suggestions If you break fellowship with God, that’s personal sin, something you think, something you say or something you do. If you break fellowship with God and you fail to rebound, you are not protected from satanic suggestions. Remember James 4, 7, submit yourselves to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you. Let’s go back to the story about Ananias and Sapphira. After three hours later, three hours, I don’t know where she had been, but she missed out on this one. Not knowing what had happened, Peter said, tell me, Sapphira, what’s the price you and Ananias got for your land? Is that the total price? And she said, oh, absolutely, yes, that’s the price, yes. A big lie she and her hubby had agreed upon, apparently, before her husband died, the son of the dead, which she’s about to die now. And Peter said to her then, how could you conspire to test the spirit of the Lord? Listen, the feet of the man who buried your husband are now at the door and they’re going to carry you out also. And at that moment, she fell down at his feet and died. And then the burial platoon, the young man came in, found her dead and carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Not a very good ending for those two, for lying to the Holy Spirit and lying to God. That didn’t work out for them. And it will not work out for you either. You can’t do that. You can’t get away with lying to God. And the sooner you learn that, the sooner you realize that, the better off you’re going to be. Don’t try to lie to God. These two wanted to be recognized as something they were not. That’s what they were up to. In Acts 4, 36 through 37, Joseph, a Levite, had also sold property and given the funds to the local church. This is just before Ananias and Sapphira did what they did in Acts chapter 5, 1 through 10. So this is right before them. Joseph, a Levite, sold his property and gave funds to the church. Listen. Acts 4, 36. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means sons of encouragement, sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. Now, this is probably where Ananias and Sapphira got the idea. They were jealous. They saw that that act of generosity had apparently brought this man a lot of recognition and a lot of appreciation for his very gracious gift. So maybe Ananias and his wife Sapphire were jealous of the attention given to Joseph and they also sought to be recognized by their apparent sacrificial gift. Whatever the reason, it was apparent the last straw, it was apparently the last straw for the justice of God. And he terminated their time on earth as a lesson not to be repeated. Do you hear that? This was the last straw for the justice of God with these two. They’d been out of fellowship a long time. This wasn’t the first sin they committed. And he terminated their time on earth, sin unto death, as a lesson not to be repeated. The sin unto death is a great lesson to be learned in not mocking God. In Galatians chapter six, verse seven, Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man will reap what he sows. And these two apparently thought they could fool the church, fool Peter, fool the congregation, and even fool God. Didn’t happen. Now, I don’t know what you might have done. I don’t know what lies you might have told to get recognition or attention, but I suggest that you confess it to God right now. I suggest that you come clean before the Lord right now before it’s too late for you. We have to learn that God is well aware of our motives. He’s well aware of our intentions and all of our desires. And the motive for this act was simply to gain recognition and appreciation for something that they didn’t really do. See, what they were implying was they were great, mature believers by giving this son of money, and that was all a lie. They were not what they claimed to be. They were more interested in appearance than honesty, thus they lied in order to gain the power of popularity and the position of recognition within the church. I’m gonna say that again. They were more interested in appearance than honesty, and they lied in order to gain the power of popularity and recognition in the church. There is power in popularity, and there is recognition in the church, And these are not the first two people that have tried to impress someone with apparently their gifts, you know, like I’m going to give some land to the church or I’m going to do this to the church. I mean, I’ve heard so many stories you can’t believe over the years how people have manipulated the congregation, manipulated the pastor, manipulated the church, but they have not ever manipulated God. And they want power and they want recognition. Notice Sapphira was in on the deal. She was part of the spiritual scam. Ladies, listen. Listen, ladies. No wife ever needs to go along with her husband’s deception. Peter gave her an opportunity to come clean, but she still lied and still misrepresented the facts. He gave her an opportunity to come clean. She didn’t have to do that. You know, I have a tendency to think she might have thought this thing up to start with. In Acts 5, 7 through 8, about three hours later, the wife came in, not knowing what had happened. I’m repeating it now, listen. And Peter said to her, tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land? And she could have said, well, no, not really. We just wanted you to think that. But she was so arrogant and so full of herself and unaware her husband was dead. She lied and said, oh yes, oh yes, that’s the price we got, oh yes. Aren’t we wonderful, marvelous Christians for doing that and giving all this money to the church? Lying to yourself, lying to yourself is an indication of arrogance. You see, the arrogant individual has an unrealistic self-image. If you have an unrealistic self-image, you’re going to have unrealistic expectations. In other words, you won’t see yourself as you actually are, but you will see yourself as you think you are. This is a sin that’s not talked about very much in the church today, and that’s arrogance. Arrogance is the sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven because he tried to assume that he was smarter than God and take over the throne of God. And arrogance is a terrible, terrible, destructive sin. because the arrogant person always assumes he’s right and everyone else is wrong. I’ve seen it in my life and you’ve seen it in your life. The arrogant person thinks a police officer is wrong for giving him a ticket. The arrogant person thinks the teacher’s wrong for giving him an elf on a grade. They’ll always say, that’s not fair. That’s not fair. And in reality, every time they point their finger at someone, there’s three fingers pointing right back at them. So that’s what arrogant people do. They lie to themselves. They don’t see themselves as they actually are. They see themselves as they think you are, as they think they are. Now, I gotta ask you this question. Have you lied to yourself? Have you told yourself that you’re a great Christian because you tithe? Have you told yourself you’re a great Christian because you don’t drink and you don’t smoke and you don’t cuss and you only watch G-rated movies? Have you deceived yourself into thinking you’re a great Christian and yet in your heart there’s bitterness and hatred and vindictiveness towards other members of the church, other members of the congregation, other members of your family, you can’t stand them? But oh, you look good, you smell good, you act like you’re a great Christian. You’re lying to yourself, lying to others. Jesus said this, organized religion will tell you, let me back that up for a minute. Let me make this clear. Organized religion will tell you about salvation and the spiritual life. They will lie to you about it. You hear me? Organized religion will lie to you about salvation and lie to you about the spiritual life. Here’s what our Lord Jesus said. In John 3, 3, Jesus replied, truly, truly, I say unto you that no one can see the kingdom of God unless you’re born again. No one can see the kingdom of God unless you’re born again. Organized religion is not going to tell you to be born again. They’re going to tell you to straighten up and fly right and be good and serve God, give some money, be polite. And then in the end, maybe God will judge you and say, okay, you can come on in. You’ve been a good boy. Have you ever heard this statement in your local church? I’m going to quote Matthew seven 21. Listen carefully. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father, which is in heaven. Oh, what exactly is that mean? The only people that are going to heaven are the ones who do the will of my father, which is in heaven. That’s the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the will of the Father? Well, in John 6, 40, we find what it is. In John 6, 40, Jesus said, For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. What do I have to do to have eternal life? I have to be born again. How am I born again? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved is what the Bible says. It doesn’t have anything to do with joining a church. It doesn’t have anything to do with giving up your drinking. It doesn’t have anything to do with giving up your smoking. It doesn’t have anything to do with promising God you’ll never say another dirty word. It’s simply faith alone in Christ alone. That’s why the Bible makes it clear. For by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God and not of works lest anyone should brag about it. That’s all it takes is faith. Faith in the finished work of Christ. I mean, you can do that right now. If you’re not sure, you can pray right now because the Bible says whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You can pray right now and you can tell the Father you are believing in Jesus Christ as your Savior, that you want to receive him as your Savior. That’s all you have to do. Bow your head. Not if you’re driving now, okay? But bow your head and simply say, Father, I’m a sinner and I’m lost and I know it. I believe Christ died for me and I’m willing to accept him as my Savior. That’s a simple prayer. You don’t have to have those exact words, but something similar to that. Telling the Father you are willing to accept Christ as your Savior. That’s what it means to be born again. And you’re not going to feel it. You’re not going to feel a ripple through your body. You’re not going to feel a surge of electricity. Your hair is not going to stand up on the end. But it’ll happen. Because the Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And God is not a liar like some other people are. He doesn’t lie. And the Bible says these things are written so that you might know that you have eternal life. He that has the Son has life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Have you lied to yourself about being saved? Have you in your own arrogance convinced yourself that you’re good enough to go to heaven because you’re not like other bad people? You’re sadly mistaken. Organized religion will also lie to you in regards to the mechanics of your spiritual life. the mechanics of your spiritual life. In other words, how does it work? You know, this is something I struggled with the first year or two after I got saved. What am I supposed to do next? I mean, how does this thing work? If I’m fishing, I have to know what lures will catch fish. If I’m hunting, I have to know where to go hunt the animals. If I’m fixing the refrigerator, I have to know where this is or where that is. I got to know stuff to do it correctly. And the Christian life demands mechanics. You got to do a right thing in the right way. And the mechanics are called the protocol plan of God, which means the right thing in a wrong way is still wrong. Organized religion will lie to you about their spiritual life. You ever heard a phrase like this? Listen, let me say it to you. Turn it over to Jesus, brother. Let’s all pray about it, brother. Or come surrender all and rededicate your life. One guy told me one time, he said, I’ve rededicated so many times, my rededicators wore off and I’m still the same person. Some people rededicate and rededicate and rededicate a lot of times, but they keep going back to the same sin because they’ve never been taught what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, as per Ephesians 5.18. Nor have they ever been taught what it means to recover from sin and regain fellowship with God, as per 1 John 1.9. Legalism is rampant in organized religion. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, don’t dance. Be sure you send in your tithe now, brother. I mean, has the pastor ever visited you and told you you need to honor your tithe? I have a neighbor that said the preacher came to his house and told him, brother, you’re not giving like you should. You need to give more. You promised to give more, and you need to give it. What an invasion of privacy. These are all lies designed to manipulate you into being a good Christian, supposedly. And that’s not what a good Christian is, I assure you. The scriptures will never lie to you, never. The word of God is absolute trust. So do you trust the Bible? Do you trust the scriptures? And will you obey the scriptures? Or will you make excuses and try to justify why they don’t really apply to you? When the Bible says, study to show that self-approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, does that apply to you? Are you supposed to study the Bible? Well, yes. So you understand the mechanics to the Christian life. Well, how much studying am I supposed to do? I mean, isn’t going to church once on Sunday morning, isn’t that enough? No. That just makes you a member of the nod to God crowd. That’s all it does. If you’re going to grow to be a spiritually mature believer, you need to sit under a well-qualified pastor on a consistent basis daily, taking time to take in the Word of God every day, and then making the application into your life. We call that what? We call that LAG, L-A-G, learn, apply, and then glorify. You can’t learn if you don’t study. So you have to find time to get under a well-qualified pastor and listen to the teaching of the word of God consistently. Maybe not every day, but at least several days a week. But if you don’t have time, you’re too busy, you got a busy lifestyle, then we understand. Well, I sure hope you’re listening. I sure hope you’re paying attention because I hope this is getting a ring in your bell. Please listen to what I tell you. Don’t be a liar, especially to yourself, nor should you lie to God. Next week, same time, same place. This is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
