Rev. David Holwick ZI Questions People Ask
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
November 2, 2003
Zechariah 8:16-17
I CANNOT TELL A LIE
I. Truth or consequences.
A. An honest football player.
Back in the 1940's Frank Szymanski, a Notre Dame center, had
been called as a witness in a civil suit in South Bend.
"Are you on the Notre Dame football team this year?" the judge
asked.
"Yes, Your Honor."
"What position?"
"Center, Your Honor."
"How good a center?"
Szymanski squirmed in his seat, but said firmly:
"Sir, I'm the best center Notre Dame has ever had."
Coach Frank Leahy, who was in the courtroom, was surprised.
Szymanski always had been modest and unassuming.
So when the proceedings were over, he took Szymanski aside and
asked why he had made such a statement.
Szymanski blushed.
"I hated to do it, Coach. But, after all, I was under oath."
#2845
B. John Osborne's funeral - he was a man of honesty and integrity.
C. What about the rest of us?
1) Do we lie to the government? To our spouses? To God?
2) One researcher says the average person lies 50 times a day.
Usually it is to cover up our social errors:
"I have a headache."
"It's in the mail."
"Of course I care."
"I don't expect anything in return." #6223
3) Question by Nancy Noyes - is it ever acceptable to lie?
II. Deception is on a roll.
A. For my generation, especially evident in politics.
1) Johnson and Vietnam.
2) Nixon and Watergate.
B. This generation is no better.
1) Pentagon considers starting an office of "misinformation."
a) Deliberate lies to unhinge our enemies.
(response to September 11 attacks)
b) But could even our friends trust what we say?
1> It was quickly squelched.
2) Enron and culture of corporation deception and lies.
3) American taxpayers.
The number of Americans who believe it's OK to cheat "a little here
and there" on taxes has risen 50 percent in the past 4 years.
Of the 1,024 taxpayers surveyed in July, 12 percent responded that
it was acceptable to cheat a little when filing income taxes.
Only 8 percent felt that way in the same survey for 1999.
An additional group who said taxpayers should cheat "as much as
possible" also went up, from 3 percent to 5 percent.
The IRS Oversight Board survey concluded that most people pay the
taxes they owe out of a sense of personal integrity.
But the fear of an audit increased sharply this year as a motivation
among taxpayers - from 8 to 37 percent, the survey says.
#26158
III. Acceptable to lie sometimes?
A. Categorizing lies.
1) Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
a) German pastor who plotted to kill Adolf Hitler; he said
he learned to lie better than Satan.
1> However, he was caught and executed just days
before Americans liberated his prison.
b) Bonhoeffer said:
"It is only the cynic who claims 'to speak the truth' at
all times and in all places to all men in the same way.
It is very difficult to say what actually constitutes
a lie."
2) Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas distinguished between
helpful lies and malicious lies.
a) Both were sins to him, but only malicious lies were
MORTAL sins. (You don't go to hell for them)
b) (He also thought jokes were like helpful lies.)
B. Implication: lies for a good purpose are morally acceptable.
1) Oliver North:
"Lying isn't nice.
But sometimes you must weigh in the balance the difference
between lives and lies."
2) We expect deception in wars.
a) In book of Joshua, Rahab is commended for hiding the
Israelite spies - but she lied to save them.
b) She is commended for it, and her family is spared.
IV. The truth is always a better idea.
A. The Bible unequivocally denounces lies and liars.
1) Sixth commandment: "Don't bear false witness." Deut 5:20
2) The Apostle Paul: "Put off falsehood and speak truthfully
to your neighbor." Eph 4:25
3) Book of Revelation: liars have no place in the Kingdom
of God. Rev 22:15
B. Ancient theologian Augustine was absolutely against lying.
1) No Christian should ever lie.
2) Some lies are worse than others.
3) Some lies are understandable - to save a life.
4) Yet all lies are wrong.
C. John Wesley:
"I would not tell one lie to save the souls of all the world."
D. German theologian Helmut Thielicke said in his native Germany,
"The avoidance of one small fib ... may be a stronger
confession of faith than a whole 'Christian philosophy'
championed in lengthy, forceful discussion."
#2767
V. Lying assumes we must manipulate the situation.
A. It is an implicit statement by us that God is not in control.
B. The testimony of a Korean.
Kim Duk-Soo was found by North Korean soldiers in their cellar
on November 20, 1950.
He and his father, a Presbyterian pastor for 42 years, were taken
to prison and told they would be executed in the morning.
His father told him they could not tell a lie to save their
lives.
That evening, a captain approached Kim. "Are you a Christian?"
For a fleeting moment, life for a lie seemed the only logical
way to go.
But the young boy remembered his father's instruction.
"I am a Christian," Kim said.
The captain drew closer, and whispered, "I am a Christian too.
I used to be a Sunday school teacher before the war.
You must escape tonight. I will help you."
Kim fled that night, having to leave his father under heavy
guard awaiting his eventual death.
Kim made it to an American base and played the organ for the
chapel.
If he had lied, what would have happened to him? #1181
C. Oprah Winfrey on "How Truth Changed My Life":
When Oprah was 13 she decided new, octagon-shaped glasses
would make her beautiful and popular.
Her mother refused, telling Oprah they couldn't afford such
an extravagance.
The next day, after her mother had gone to work, Oprah smashed
her old glasses on the floor.
She pulled down the curtains, knocked over a table and threw
things around the room.
Then she called the police.
"I decided to be unconscious when they came in and to have
amnesia."
At the hospital, the doctor brought her mother to her bed,
but Oprah pretended not to recognize her.
"All we know is that someone broke into the apartment, hit her
over the head and broke her glasses," explained the doctor.
"Broke her glasses?" asked Vernita Lee.
"Do you mind if I'm alone with the child for a few minutes?"
The mother glared at her daughter and counted to three.
As Oprah tells it:
"She got to two, and I knew she was going to kill me.
And so I said, 'It's coming back to me now ... you're my mother!'
She dragged me from the bed and we went home.
Yes, I got the octagons."
She went to live with her father, Vernon Winfrey, who had
married and grown into a respectable member of the community.
He was a barber and pillar of the Baptist church.
He taught her honesty.
"I never told another lie.
I wouldn't dream of making up a story to my Dad.
Let me tell you, there is something about people who believe in
discipline - they exude a kind of assurance and realism."
At a beauty pageant when asked about her life's ambition, she
replied, "I believe in truth, and I want to perpetuate truth.
So I want to be a journalist."
Her most valuable lesson: "Just tell the truth.
It will save you every time." #678
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
Much of the material in this sermon is derived from "The Pinocchio
Syndrome" by Kenneth S. Kantzer, Christianity Today, October 6, 1989;
illustration #3242.
# 678 "Oprah Winfrey: How Truth Changed Her Life," John Culhane,
Reader's Digest, February 1989, page 102.
# 1181 "The Truth Spared His Life," Lyn Cryderman, Christianity Today,
November 20, 1987, page 42.
# 2767 "Truthfulness: The Strongest Confession of Faith," R. Kent Hughes,
"James: Faith That Works," 1991, page 251.
# 2845 "Nothing But The Truth!" David Casstevens, Chicken Soup of the
Day (internet daily mailing), October 6, 1998.
# 6223 "Lies Are Common," author and source unknown, Roddy Chestnut
illustration collection.
#26158 "Is It Okay To Cheat On Your Taxes?" Mary Dalrymple, Associated
Press on America Online, October 29, 2003.
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://illust.holwick.com
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