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Giving False Witness And Failing To Deal With The Truth Is Lying

Dealing with the Eighth Commandment:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"

 

Though God does not use the word "Lie" and does not have a commandment saying "Thou shalt not Lie" God uses the term to "Bear false witness" which in esscence means the same thing as lying.

 

We all know that Almighty God loathes sin. We also know that to lie is a sin, a sin against God.

 

There are (Three kinds of lying). We all try and avoid the first which is directly bold-face lying. We try to avoid it because we recognize that it is a deadly sin, because we deliberately contiously decided and chose to lie to someone.

 

The second form of lying, is what we might call a "White Lie" Again it is a lie, it is a sin, but we try to justify it by telling ourselves we are doing it to make someone feel better, or we are doing it to avoid someone from knowing the complete truth, where we think that an exageration or altering the facts makes things better. Flattery can be a lie. Inuendo and gossip are forms of lying too.

The third form of lying is what is known as lying by omission. Many will justify not telling, with the old saying, "What you don’t know, can’t hurt you." Wrong Wrong Wrong!

Let me give you an example: This may seem over exagerated a little, but it is what it is.

You’re walking through a grocery store with a friend who is wheeling a child in a stroller. You witness your friend grab some grapes from the display and feed some to her child and eat some.

If you ignore this and say nothing to your friend, she is guilty of stealing no matter the amount, and you are guilty of being an accessory after the fact to theft. If the store manager witnessed this, and was some real "Ass" and chose to, he could have the both of you arrested.

Here is a second scenario that might help you to see that a "Sin of Omission" is as serious a sin as bold face lying.

You are at a party with friends. You witness one of your friends is drinking, and you can tell that they are feeling good, he seems under the influence. As the party is breaking up, you observe that he still appears under the influence, but you say nothing and you observe him get into his car and leave.

As you are driving home, you pass by an accident on the street. You see two smashed cars in the middle of the street and what appears like a dead body lying on the road. You notice your friend being loaded into a police car, and it hits you, you could have possibly prevented all of this had you said something to your friend to try and stop him from DUI.

The very second we see something or hear something wrong and refuse to take action, it is a sin by ommission.

Rendering unto Ceasar in a court of law we are told that ignorance is no excuse, in other words not knowing that something is wrong or unlawful is no excuse for doing it anyway.

Not saying something when we know it to be wrong and excusing it or ignoring our obligation to do the right thing is wrong, maybe twice as wrong. Also failing to give witness to the police about a crime we observed, is a criminal offence as well as a sin by omission.

"Go and sin no more." Words that should forever ring in our ears, and in our minds and hearts everytime we lie bold faced, or tell a little "White lie or fib, of worse still fail to address the truth and deal with the sin.

 

 

John:
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