Lying and Killing

I have just a few words today on the subjects of lying and killing, as these topics came up at a prayer meeting that I held last night. Lying is a heinous sin and in fact is what started the whole ball of destruction rolling in this world to begin with. The serpent lied to Eve in the garden of Eden, she believed that lie and the rest is history (Gen. 3:4-6). It is not good history either, I might add. No good whatsoever can come from lying, or from believing someone else’s lie; but we have a whole lot of documentation that much BAD can and will come from it. The Bible also clearly informs us that anyone who is inclined to doing wrong, and anyone who lies themselves will be a believer of lies: “A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue” (Prov. 17:4). If we need any further confirmation that lying is a seriously bad thing, we have the words of Jesus to those who rejected him: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (Jn. 8:44). So if we are liars, that means we are children of the devil, plain and simple. Okay, now here is my question, and the point that I would like to make on what is lying and what is not: Was Rahab the harlot in the book of Joshua, ‘lying’ when she hid the men whom Joshua had sent to spy out the land, and told the men of king of Jericho that she did not know who they were, and that they had left her house earlier? (Josh. 2:1-5). According to the thinking of almost all modern day 'Christians,’ Rahab was lying because she did not tell it the way it was. But the men of God, along with Joshua, thought differently and rewarded Rahab for doing what she did by sparing her and her family when the men of Israel took the city and killed the inhabitants. Not only so, but Rahab was joined to the children of Israel and continued with them (Josh. 6:22-25). James also in the new testament gave honor to Rahab by calling her 'lying’ an act of true faith in God (Jas. 2:25). The truth of the matter is that actual lying is when someone changes something for the sake of evil, as the serpent did in the garden of Eden.

Lying can be more accurately defined as 'deceit,’ and it is always something with a morally wrong motivation. In the case of Rahab, she changed the facts of what was going on for the sake of protecting men that were of God. That is NOT a morally wrong motivation, and therefore it is not lying. Of course the wrong person can take this truth and run way too far with it, but that can and is done by the wicked in all things that pertain to truth and righteousness. Neither God nor righteous people of God reward anyone for doing wrong, but rather for doing what is right. Rahab did what was right and was rewarded accordingly. Hers is not the only example but it is certainly sufficient to the point, and there is no contradiction to it because it is a demonstration of truth, and truth never changes. Then we have the issue of the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exd. 20:13). The same God, in the same law, issued A BUNCH of instructions TO KILL those who broke his commandments in a severe nature; such as murder, kidnapping, adultery, bestiality, witchery, etc. (Num. 35:17; Deut. 24:7; Lev. 20:10; Lev. 20:16; Exd. 22:18). That’s right, God himself said “Don’t kill,” then he turned right around and said, “DO kill.” Does that make God contradictory, or maybe a little bit confused? I rather doubt that. So then what does the commandment mean that says, “Thou shalt not kill?” It simply means not to kill needlessly, or commit murder. Is that not enough scriptural evidence for you? Then try this on for size: When the children of Israel committed whoredom with the Moabites and Midianites at Baal-Peor, God called for the heads of those involved to be hung up against the sun, and he also killed twenty four thousand of his own people with a plague for this mass ungodliness (Num. 25:1,4,9). The number would have been far greater except that Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, ran into the tent of an Israelite man who had taken his Midianite girlfriend inside for some fun; and ran both of them through with a javelin (Num. 25:7,8).

So what did God think about THAT? “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel” (Num. 25:10-13). I would sure like to think that I could have that kind of report and resume with God, wouldn’t you? Do I really have to ask if Phinehas was guilty of breaking the commandment of “Thou shalt not kill?” Of course he wasn’t, as God does not reward the breakers of his law by establishing with them “[his] covenant of peace…. [and] an everlasting priesthood.” What Phinehas did, he did for righteousness sake, even as the penalties of death implemented in the law by God were for the sake of promoting and preserving righteousness. “Thou shalt not kill” means that they could not kill for the sake of evil, such as in the case of murder. Everything with God is a matter of differentiating between good and evil, not between words and technicalities. It’s the wicked, or at least the ignorant who get hung up on words and technicalities. When John the Baptist told the soldiers in his day, “Do violence to no man,” he meant for them to not do violence needlessly (Lk. 3:14). Does that mean that they would be doing evil if they had to kill someone in battle in order to protect their comrades and preserve their nation? Of course not; God himself commanded his people in the old testament to kill in battle on many occasions. In fact Saul the first king of Israel, lost the kingdom because he DID NOT kill all of the Amalekites whom God had sent him to kill, by the word of Samuel (I Sam. 15:1-3,9,28). So the truth of these matters is that those who love righteousness will be able to see these issues with good spiritual sense and understand that in both cases it is a matter of discerning good from evil, rather than masking a hyper-righteous religious spirit with a nonsensical viewpoint of a technicality of words. “As for God, his way is perfect” (II Sam. 22:31). Amen and amen.