Bruce Collins, Evangelist

The personal website of Bruce Collins

Are All Men (and Women) Liars?
 
I said in my haste, All men are liars. (Psalm 116:11 KJV)
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44 KJV)
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. (Romans 3:4 KJV)
 
Do we all Lie?
Is there anyone whose word is dependable today?  Based on Scripture, I think it is fair to say that we have all lied at some time in our lives.   We sing songs like, “I surrender all,” that make liars out of us unintentionally.  We should be singing, “I surrender some!.”   But the kind of liar that seems to reflect the character of the Devil, is the person who lies without a conscience.  It is the person who as my folks always said, “They lie when the truth would do better.”  Lying is the character of their lives.  
 
Personal Experience
I worked as a cost accounting manager for a military industrial corporation that made lying seem normal and necessary.  Most people think accounting is an exact science and there is only one balance sheet and income statement that represents the condition and the operations of a company.  However, accounting,  particularly for large corporations, is an art and not a science.  I lost my job when the assistant controller used me to make journal entries that actually reduced the income of the company in a big way so that they would not have to pay back excess earnings on defense contracts.  When the auditors came and found all but one of the entries, I pointed out that there was an additional entry that they hadn’t found.  And of course, my position was eliminated for trying to tell the truth.  
 
As a CPA with my own practice, I had clients who never intended to pay their bills and would wait for a year to complain about the service they had received.  Usually these were people whose tax returns I had filed.  I always forgave the bill when that happened and then asked them to find another CPA.  But I also want to say that when I ran my own business, I had many “salt of the earth” clients who paid their bills and if they couldn’t they came to me and worked out a solution with which we could both live.  That’s what Christians should do.  Some of these were not professing Christians, but they still had a conscience and wanted to keep their promises and pay their bills.
 
Preaching the Gospel
It seems to me that our “word” is one thing we have that should be dependable, particularly if we are handing out Gospel tracts.  When we lie (intentionally and unintentionally) we are really doing the bidding of the Father of Lies. . .the Devil himself.  When we tell the truth, we are doing the bidding of the One who loved us enough to forgive us our sins (including lying) by dying for us on a cross.
 
Interesting Paradox
The Lord says, I am the way, the truth and the life.  Yet, most people I know (even those who claim to be believers) question plain simple teaching of parts of the Scripture.  The Jewish nation has outright rejected the Lord as the Truth.  The Lord says that the Devil is a liar and the Father of Lies, yet in my opinion, we sometimes find it easier to believe the Liar than to believe the One who always tells us the truth.  His word is truth.  And sometimes the Truth does not sit well with us.   I believe the Bible and I preach it because our eternal destinies depend on knowing what is true and what is false.  
 
The Lord says (and I like the way the NLT translates this verse), “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life (John 5:24 NLT).  You can take that to the bank and depend on it. 
 
My Lord does not lie!
 
Bruce Collins
 
Meditation for the week of October 23, 2022

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