Lies and Deceit

I was going to open this post by saying that the past several weeks has witnessed some extraordinary attacks on the truth, but then I remembered that the attacks have been going on for a lot longer - since Eden, in fact - than just the last several weeks. The attacks against truth, then, continues at all levels and all its myriad methods. I guess I will always be surprised by the legs that some lies have, how they can show up in the unlikeliest of places even after truth had quashed the attack.

A recent story in our favorite paper, The Washington Times, describes the leader of an Egyptian group who agrees with the Iranian president that the Holocaust is a lie. He believes that there is some truth to the forced incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Jews, just not the millions claimed by historical accounts, and he certainly doesn't accept the mass killings. Additionally, he disputes that Usama bin Ladin was not skilled enough to have led the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. Craziness all around.

I did not research how often it is used, but I think it is most likely a safe guess that lie (as it refers to not telling the truth), deceit (in all forms) and falsehood are likely used the most when God is revealing the heart of man. Doesn't it bear out that deceitfulness and a general lack of honesty pervades our society? Of course, the motivation behind the lie is to prevent being found out. Not just about the thing which gave opportunity for the lie, but about us. Who we really are. It is why God holds deceit and the one who practices it in such disdain. It offends God's character.

It offends us. The Deceiver "steals" trust. Deceit necessitates that we abuse our words, our own character means nothing at all (sort of a "lies don't affect who we are"). Actually, we have adopted the philosophy that only the immediate is appropriate to discern by. This way, we can refute any attempt to correct our error and any attack on our character.

It may actually be worse to be pleased to hear the lie, but that will have to wait until another post. Since this has taken longer to complete than I planned, I will tell you that we have an appointment at The Lombardi Center for Cancer at Georgetown University on Monday, July 18, at 10:30am. We ask you to pray with us that God would be very clear in the way we should go with this visit.