Truth or consequence

One time an employee came to me with some disturbing news about something another employee had done. I met with the other employee and was told a direct opposite story. I called a meeting with both of them and let them confront each other and they both stuck to their original stories. As I listened to them and watched them, they both appeared very earnest and it was really impossible to tell who was telling the truth. I wanted to believe them both; however their stories were so far apart it was evident that someone was stretching the truth. It was a classic case of one person’s word against the other’s. I thought to myself someone is misrepresenting the truth, but I cannot determine who.
Solomon was faced with this years ago when two women came before him, both claiming to be the mother of the same child. Solomon told them to cut the baby in half and give half to each of them. One woman stood silent while the other cried out, “No, no give the baby to her”.
Solomon immediately knew who the real mother was. He gave the baby to the mother who had cried out and punished the imposter.

I taught my boys to tell the truth when they were growing up. My advice was simple, always tell the truth because the consequence of lying is always far worse. Everyone makes mistakes. I make them everyday. When a mistake is made, we should own up to it, if an apology is in order, make it and then move forward determined not to make that same mistake again. Some mistakes are more serious than others. I told my boys that no matter how serious a mistake is, lying about it will only make it worse. Lying simply adds another mistake. My boys learned at a young age that the punishment for lying would be far worse than the punishment for owning up to whatever they had done. The bottom line is they did not want to accept punishment for the original mistake PLUS face the music for telling a lie to try to cover-up the original mistake.

Unfortunately I do not have the wisdom of Solomon and I suppose that I will never know who was telling the truth in the case mentioned above, but God knew the second it came out of their mouth. The Bible teaches that lying is sin and sin does not go unpunished, so we do not really ever get away with it. The entire human race was expelled from the Garden of Eden as a result of a lie when satan told the first lie ever to Eve. We humans have been lying ever since. The Bible teaches that satan is the father of all lies and that God cannot lie. When we are tempted to lie about something, we should realize that we are being tempted by satan and ask ourselves whose side we want to be on. satan is the father of lies; God is the Father of truth. It is our choice.
Lest you doubt where lies originate, listen to what Jesus is telling us in the passage below.

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John 8:44
“You are of your father the
devil, and the desires of your father
you want to do. He was a murderer
from the beginning, and does not
stand in the truth, because there is
no truth in him. When he speaks a
lie, he speaks from his own
resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”




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