Thou shalt not bear false witness- Exodus 20:16 KJV
Spiritual Lies have always been a problem in our world. Most of the New Testament letters were written in response to some spiritual lie generating pandemonium in the 1st century church. Not much has changed in the last two thousand years. If anything, spiritual lies have become even more plentiful in the 21st century.
There are all sorts of reasons for this.
The internet is undoubtedly a factor. Thanks to the worldwide web it is easier (and faster) to spread lies than it once was. Human nature doesn’t help. We are a fallen people and fallen people love lies more than truth (Psalm 52:3, Daniel 8:12). It is also true the lines between truth and falsehood have become blurrier in recent years. Fewer people think in terms of black and white these days. Grey is in. This has led society to embrace situational ethics and a conviction that we are all blessed with our own unique little truth. My truth doesn’t have align with your truth or even to recognized facts. It just has to be something I choose to believe is true. I suspect demonic activity is at play here. As we inch closer to the end of all things, Satan (the father of lies) has more power (for a season) and it would make sense that lies would become more prolific (Daniel 9:26, Daniel 11:35, Isaiah 46:9-11, Luke 21:9, Matthew 24:14). This means it’s essential Christians do their due diligence, learn the Bible and be on the alert for clever lies meant to deceive us into attitudes and behaviors displeasing to Jesus. The following list is far from exhaustive, but it does cover a couple of clear troublemakers, including:
Grace means God lowered His standards of behavior-
For the last couple of decades or so, many churches have taught grace means God stopped judging people, especially Christians. As a result, many Christians feel little is really off-limits for them because well, God forgives sin, so sin must not be that big a deal. As a result, fewer and fewer Christians feel bad about sex outside of marriage, using salty or saucy language, gossiping, greed, selfishness or abortion. Many have embraced a very flexible morality when it comes to social/political issues. This idea is dangerous because it’s cheap grace. It’s grace that has forgotten Jesus paid a heavy price so we could have the privilege of complete forgiveness (Romans 4:7). It also denies a lot of reality including a plethora of Scripture that teaches the way to heaven is narrow, hard and requires we embrace holiness and put Jesus commands into practice (Matthew 7:13-29, Matthew 25:1-46). This lie also flat-out disregards every warning given to Christians in the Testament that unrepentant sin will keep a person from “inheriting the kingdom of God” (1st Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-2, Hebrews 10:26-27, Revelation 21:8). This truth does not mean we should embrace legalism or a harsh view of God. Rather God’s grace and kindness should cause us to honor God’s mercy with a life of love lived out in obedience (Titus 2:11-13).
Paul is not a legit apostle so we can ignore his writings-
This is a relatively new lie. It may or may not gain any real traction in coming years but it’s worth noting. There are some who are teaching that because Paul wasn’t one of the original twelve apostles he was not a legit authority in the early church. Consequently, his writings can and should be disregarded by modern readers (2nd Peter 3:15-17). I suspect this view is attractive to some because Paul’s teachings tend to be hard. Nobody likes hard anymore. This view is a mess because it does not give God credit for being God. If God had wanted to keep Paul from writing most of the New Testament he could have. He didn’t so we best pay attention to what was written and handed down (2nd Timothy 3:16, 2nd Peter 1:19-21).
No one has to forgive anyone unless the offender has repented-
This lie is gaining a lot of traction. There are a couple of problems with it. First, Jesus never attached the need for the offender to repent to His commands for us to forgive. Jesus did not say: forgive seventy times seven but only if the offender proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt they are dang sorry for what they did. That’s absurd. I guarantee you that if someone has committed the same sin 490 times, they are NOT sorry for what they did and they will probably do it again. We are told to forgive anyway (Matthew 18:21-35). The second issue is bigger and thornier: who gets to decide if someone has truly repented? Me? You? Some committee of smart people somewhere? How will we know if someone is truly sorry? The truth is that we can’t know, only God can know, because He is the only one who can see the human heart (1st Samual 16:7). That’s why we are commanded to forgive and let God sort the details out in His own time and way (Matthew 6:15).
And finally,
Circumstances excuse wrong behavior-
In our squishy world where situational ethics reign supreme, we like to think this is true but it’s not. Adultery is wrong even if your spouse happens to be entirely unpleasant. Stealing is wrong even if a person is hungry and it doesn’t matter if someone is mentally ill or not. Killing innocent people, especially those who are unable to defend themselves is wrong. Thankfully, there is grace and mercy available to all who ask for it, but it doesn’t mean anyone gets to sin willy-nilly just because times are tough and life is hard. That’s just another lie we’ve bought into.
