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It is possible to speak against truth and yet not lie, provided we speak in good faith. It is speaking in bad faith, with conscious purpose of deceiving, that is a lie. Take the text on the broad general ground that lying is abomination to the Lord. Take the word in its honest downright form; do not let us shelter ourselves under smooth expressions — equivocation, prevarication, dissembling, simulation, untruthfulness — longer words, by which men try to take the edge from unpleasant facts — but which all in the end point to the same thing, a want of sincerity. Whatever you may do to soften off the epithet and description, there remains the text in all its decision and boldness. Nor is the verdict of man less decisive. Even while they practise it men condemn lying. Perjury is a crime branded by all governments, heathen as well as Christian. We apply the word "true" to all that is good and worthy. Is not our instinctive feeling that truth is the object most worthy of attaining? Its opposite must be proportionally odious. Consider the mischief which lying occasions to society. It is by mutual confidence, by faith in the honesty and purity of each other's motives, that we live on together. No peace can be where there is no trust. See some of the sorts of lies which prevail nowadays.

1. White lies — lies glossed over and decorated by fashion; specious habits of talk, and conventional phrases; justified by necessity, expediency, or the like.

2. Slander. This is not peculiar to our age — witness the cases of Mephibosheth, Naboth, Jeremiah, the blessed Lord Himself, all victims of false accusation — but it is not rare in our age.

3. Lies to screen our faults. These are more natural and intelligible. To escape the consequences of a sin by hiding it seems a tangible advantage; but is it? Do we gain by cloking one fault with another? Every right-minded man would have a thousand times more pity for one who owned his fault and asked forgiveness than for one who tried to elude detection. We are disgusted with the man who has no self-respect, and no respect for us, who in using a lie deems us simple enough to be cajoled, and considers the doubling of his sin preferable to owning himself in the wrong. This is said of sins against our fellow-men: how much more forcibly it applies to sins against God.

4. Two other modes of lying frequently come before the clergyman.

(1) In asking for relief there are those who simulate and exaggerate their poverty to move the hearts of the charitable.

(2) In the publication of the banns of marriage, false addresses are frequently given, and that with an assurance perfectly startling. Then let us see to the truthfulness of our hearts and lips. If we are the children of God, members of Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, we must be truthful. If you are tempted to utter words of deceit, remember how abominable such things are to the Lord, and how they bar up impenetrably the gates of heaven, which fly open at the approach of truth.

(G. F. Prescott, M.A.)

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KJV: Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.

WEB: Lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh, but those who do the truth are his delight.