Lying Words By J. L. Reynolds

Lying Words
James L. Reynolds

(Jeremiah 7:1-8) "The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, {2} Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. {3} Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. {4} Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. {5} For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; {6} If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: {7} Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. {8} Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit."

It is evident from the few verses of this portion of God’s Word which we have just read that those being directly addressed are the children of Israel. However, without doing any damage to the correct interpretation we would like to focus on one verse of the portion of Scripture which we have just read and ask you to consider carefully our comments this morning.
Notice if you will verse 8 from Jeremiah chapter 7.

(Jeremiah 7:8) "Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit."

    Under Divine inspiration Jeremiah charges the Israelites with trusting in ‘lying words’ and declares unto them that those ‘lying words’ will be of no profit unto them.
    This morning we would like to take a few minutes of your valuable time and present unto you some instances of where people trust in ‘lying words’ and then we will attempt to show unto you that those misplaced trusts will be of no profit unto the ones who held them.
    There are many instances of people trusting in ‘lying words’ evident to us but for brevity’s sake we will mention but a few.
    1.) The first instance that we have of ‘lying words’is recorded for us in God’s inspired Word in Genesis 3:1-5.

(Genesis 3:1-5) "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? {2} And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: {3} But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. {4} And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: {5} For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

    We see here that satan, in the guise of a serpent, spoke ‘lying words’ concerning the verity of God’s prohibitive command to the woman whom God had created.
    We are not told in the divine record if this is the first instance of satan lying. We are told however by our Lord in John 8:44 that he is the father, that is the originator, of lies.
    The woman believed those ‘lying words’ and as a result mankind became sinful, rebellious creatures and estranged from their Creator. It is obvious that not only were the ‘lying words’ which Eve trusted in of no profit to her but they were also unprofitable unto all of her descendants.
    2.) The second instance of ‘lying words’ which we wish to submit unto for your consideration are those ‘lying words’ spoken by the self proclaimed intellectuals who deny God’s sovereign and omnipotent creation and defiantly proclaim the unfounded, unproven and unproveable theory of evolution.
    These individuals would have us to believe that all we see around us, in earth, in sea and in the heavens came into being as the result of some cosmic happenstance millions of years ago. The complexity of the various organisms, both plant and animal, as well as the complexities of the universe are believed, by them, to be the aftermath of a series of random events.
    These individuals attempt to belittle those who have been given faith to believe and trust in God’s account of creation. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” and have accepted as fact an idea that has never nor can ever be proven.
    There is no question that much of God’s creation can not be explained by His creatures and it is the pinnacle of arrogance to suggest that any mortal can fully fathom and understand the workings of an omnipotent and sovereign Creator. But, by God given faith, we can believe as true those things which we can not understand or explain.
    It has been correctly said that, “Evolution exists only in the minds the ignorant or the scholarly who are hopelessly prejudiced.”
    Sometimes it is hard for those who have been given faith to believe in God’s creation to look around at the complexity of creation and understand how anyone could possibly hold to the groundless theory of evolution. But if we reflect for just a moment on their reason for believing such ‘lying words’ it is much easier to understand why they do so.
    People only believe in evolution because the only other alternative is special creation and that is to them unthinkable. Their deluded and depraved minds reason that if evolution is not true and there is a special creation then there must be a Creator. And if there is a Creator then they are responsible for and must give an accounting unto that Creator for their actions. So they trust in ‘lying words’ which will one day prove to be of no profit unto them.
    For those of us who have been so greatly blessed to believe them there are but ten words which forever settles this issue in our minds and hearts.

    3.) The third instance of ‘lying words’ which we wish to put before you is the lie of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of mankind.
    Advancing past the infidel, educated or otherwise, who believes the baseless theory of evolution we turn our attention to those who are intelligent enough to look around them and realize that the complexities of the universe could not have just happened. But their natural mind and depraved heart can not correctly apprehend the fullness of their estrangement from their Creator so they have come up with this blighted concept of God’s relationship to man and man’s relationship to each other.
    According to these people God did indeed create mankind and therefore He is the Father of all of mankind. Therefore it only follows that all of mankind are brothers, the one to the other.
    Their first mistake is in that they equate Creatorship with Fatherhood. There is no doubt whatsoever that God did indeed create all of mankind, through the instrumentality of normal reproductive means from the only man and woman whom He created directly, that being Adam and his wife Eve. But, and we must emphasize that but, He is not the Father of all of mankind. One is not born into God’s family by a natural birth but is adopted into it by supernatural birth.
    To those only who are adopted into His family is God a Father. To the remainder of mankind He is their Creator but they have another father. Speaking to a representative segment of those to whom God is Creator but not Father the Lord Jesus Christ declared who their father was.

(John 8:44) "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."

    Since it is evident that God is not the Father of all of mankind it is also evident that all of mankind are not brothers.
    The main, if not the sole reason that satan has fostered these ‘lying words’upon mankind is to make them comfortable in their sins and rebellions and give them assurance that God would never cast one of His children into hell. In that statement satan has told the truth, for none who are God’s children, none who have been adopted into His family by the supernatural ‘second birth’ will ever go into the everlasting torments of hell. But all who exit this life without being adopted into God’s family, all who have not experienced the supernatural ‘second birth’, all who are children of the devil will experience the everlasting wrath of their Creator in the torments of His engulfing but not consuming flames of hell.
    4.) The fourth instance of ‘lying words’ is the false proclamation that in all of mankind there is a spark of goodness. And that if he is given an opportunity, if he is given but a little help mankind will fan that spark until it bursts into a flame of righteousness.
    This malformed and fallacious concept is so far from observed truth and experience that it is hard to understand why anyone would ever entertain such a notion. If in nature we had this good in us, then if left to ourselves would we not manifest that goodness?
    To those who are parents we pose this simple but revealing question. “Did you have to teach your children to be bad or to be good?” The answer is so obvious that to ask it is to answer it. A child left to their own resources will always manifest their true nature and that nature is one of total depravity. And, by experience or observation, we must acknowledge the fact that even of those children who grew up in moral and upright surroundings there have been a number who have openly manifested that not only do they not have any intrinsic goodness but that they do indeed have an inherent bias and penchant towards that which is evil and bad.
    In denying one’s inherent and total depravity a person only manifests the truth of that depravity. The only reason that one would claim to have any goodness of their own is to minimize the goodness of God and exalt their own self. To claim personal merit or goodness is to in effect say, “I don’t need the full goodness of God but only a portion at the most. I have sufficient strength and goodness to approach unto God on my own.”
    As we mentioned previously our own experiences and the observed experiences of others reveal unto us that the concept of inherent goodness is but another instance of ‘lying words’. Yet there is something much more sure than our experiences and that is the infallible Word of God.

(Job 15:15-16) “Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. {16} How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?"
(Ecclesiastes 7:20) "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."
(Ecclesiastes 7:29) "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."
(Isaiah 64:6) "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."
(Romans 3:10-12) "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: {11} There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. {12} They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

    5.) The fifth instance of ‘lying words’ is the denial of the singularity of Christ as the means of acceptance in God’s presence, a rejection of Christ as the sole God appointed Mediator.
    How many times have you heard someone say, “We’re all going to the same place and there are many ways to get there” or something to that effect?
    Beloved, we are not all going to the same place, praise God! But all those who believe that there are ‘many ways to get there’ are going to the same place. And that place is not the place of God’s acceptable presence but the place of His holy and unbridled wrath.
    In this ungodly world which we live it is not considered polite or ‘politically correct’ to tell the false religionists that they are deluded and trusting in ‘lying words’. The leaders of this nation, both political and religious, embrace those beliefs which deny Christ as the sole Savior and Mediator in futile attempts to unite mankind and usher in ‘world peace’. There will be no uniting of mankind and no world peace until all of mankind acknowledge that there is but one way to favor and acceptance in God’s eternal presence and that way is His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
    Even among professing Christians there are diversities of ways to the everlasting comfort of God’s acceptance. Some will proclaim all manner of works, from kneeling at the mourner’s bench, to being baptized, to joining the church and many other efforts of man.
    Yet by divine proclamation there is but one way to be accepted in God’s presence and that way is His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.

(John 14:6) "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

When the blessed Holy Spirit inspired the apostle to use the definite article ‘the’ and the singular ‘way’ He excluded all other ways. It is through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him only that there is acceptance in God’s presence.
No matter what any leader, political or religious, may say Mohammed or Buddha or a host of other false prophets or false preachers can not get you into God’s acceptable presence. There is but one way and there is but one person who has the access to God’s throne to bring His people there and that person is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

(Acts 4:12) "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

    6.) The sixth instance of ‘lying words’is the misrepresentation of the extent of Christ’s atonement.
    Much of the so called Christian world will emphatically and insistently declare that when the Lord Jesus Christ suffered the wrath of God due unto a people that He did so for all of creation. They claim that when the full and unrestrained wrath of God fell on the Lord Jesus Christ that it was for every human that would ever live.
    Because this blasphemous and heretical lie is so widely taught by the so called Christian world many in the secular world have embraced it also.
    A truly born again, saved, redeemed child of God may hold this false belief because they have never prayerfully and diligently studied the Scriptures or they may have never been taught the precious truths of God’s Word. An unscriptural sentimentality may cause them to ascribe the benefits of Christ’s precious blood to a people for whom it was never intended.
    However, I believe, and I am not hesitant to state that it is my belief, that the only reason the secular, rebellious, God hating world subscribes to this foul supposition is that it gives them comfort in their sins.    Like those who take comfort in the lie of the universal Fatherhood of God many take comfort in believing that Christ died for them. It requires no great intellect to follow their convoluted logic. “Surely,” they think “God will not condemn one to hell for whom His Son died. And if He died for all, and I am one of the all, then He died for me, and God would never consign me to hell.” In their reasoning that God will never consign one to hell for who the Lord Jesus Christ paid the ransom they are absolutely correct. However, those for whom Christ did not pay the ransom will have to stand before God for themselves and will be cast into the everlasting flames of hell.
    The so called Christian world is often quick to point out that:

(John 3:16) "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

and other such Scriptures which at first glance seem to teach a universal atonement. However, the contradictions of such a universal atonement teaching are legion.
    Let us ask these purveyors of ‘lying words’a few questions.
    a.) If Christ died for all me are all men saved and if not why not.
    b.) If God intended to redeem all of mankind and did not do so would that not be a failure on God’s part to fulfill His intentions?
    c.) If God charged the Lord Jesus will all of mankind’s sin debt and then charges individuals with that same sin debt is that not inconsistent with the holy and righteous character of God?
    We could go on and on showing the blasphemous charges which a belief in universal atonement levies against God but I trust that our point has been made.
    Moreover let us turn unto the inspired Word of God and see what is declared there.
We are well aware that the Holy Spirit inspired the use of the Greek word which would be translated ‘world’ in the Scriptures but we would implore our listeners to earnestly seek to know what that word ‘world’ means in its’ each individual Scriptural usage.
    Doe it mean all without exception or all without distinction?
    The Lord Jesus Christ used the word ‘world’ in declaring whom He would pray unto the Father for.

(John 17:9) "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine."

The prophet Isaiah, under divine inspiration, looks forward to the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and declares the extent of His substitutionary atonement.

(Isaiah 53:11-12) "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. {12} Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

Surely if anyone knew what the extent of Christ’s atonement was it would be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In instituting the commemorative supper which His church was commanded to observe He likens the fully fermented wine to His sinless blood. That is He declares it to be a picture or a representation of His sinless blood. And what is the divine extent of it being shed? That is, what was the designed scope of His atonement?

(Matthew 26:28) "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

How could it be made clearer than those words the lips of God incarnate spoke when He declared the scope of His imminent and substitutionary atonement. The same declaration is again recorded for our instruction in Mark 14:24.

(Mark 14:24) "And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many."

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of a number of Adam’s fallen posterity which the Father had given Him, in the eternal covenant of redemption, to redeem. He declared that the entirety of that number would come to Him for forgiveness and that He would receive them unto everlasting salvation.

(John 6:37) "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."
(John 17:1-2) "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: {2} As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him."

    Sometimes men play with words to confuse their hearers and I fear that many of God’s truly redeemed are guilty of playing with words and confusing their hearers, whether intentional or not.
    7.) The seventh instance of ‘lying words’ is the misrepresentation of what constitutes the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
    Much of the so called Christian world will emphatically and insistently declare that when a person is saved that they then become a member of the body of Christ and that it is some mystical universal invisible church.
    Ignoring the fact that in the vast majority of seventy-seven times the word ‘church’ is found in the King James Version of the New Testament it has reference to a distinct local assembly or a collection of assemblies they assign a new meaning to the word and have it represent something which has never assembled nor can never assemble.
    Ignoring the fact that of the vast majority of the one hundred and sixteen times the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the New Testament to use the Greek word ‘ekklessia’ it means an assembly they would have us to believe that there is not a distinction between the family of God, kingdom of God and church of God.
    In Ephesians 5:25 we are told that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. As He spoke His farewell address to His church He gave them a commission and authority to carry out that commission. That commission can not be properly carried out by the Christian world in general but by His churches in particular.

(Matthew 28:18-20) "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. {19} Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: {20} Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

    The commandments to keep the church pure by discipline can not be performed by the Christian world in general but by Christ’s churches in particular.
    Then there are those who see that the church must indeed be a local assembly so they assign divine church authority to each and every assembly calling itself a church of God.
    However, all churches not descending from the one which the Lord Jesus started during His earthly ministry do not have divine authority and commission.
    The obvious fact that there is such a diversity of beliefs, teaching and doctrine held by those all claiming to be the church of God should cause the seeker of truth to question whether they could all have divine origin and institution. We know that God does not issue any contradictory commands or precepts and when we see so many variances of belief we must conclude that God is not the author of them all.       When there are a number of varying opinions on a Scripture interpretation they may all be wrong but they can not possibly all be right.
    We are told in the Inspired Narrative that the Lord’s church is precious to Him, that it is a blood bought church and that it will have a prominent and preeminent place in His kingdom for the ceaseless ages of eternity.
    Because of ‘lying words’ mankind in general and the so called Christian world in particular have a low esteem for the real church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
    Her radiant beauty will nonetheless one day shine for all the universe to behold.
    8.) The eighth and final instance of ‘lying words’is the misrepresentation of the duration of hell.
One of the common traits of cults and false religions, many of which seek to hide under the canopy of the Christian faith, is their claim that God’s holy and just wrath will indeed consume those subject to it and that after a duration of time the recipients will be annihilated. They claim that though those who merit and suffer God’s wrath will do so for only a definite period of time. They vehemently oppose the Biblical teaching of everlasting punishment.
    It is simple to see why they would find comfort in such a belief. If any rational being is enabled to believe in an after life, with both rewards and punishment, and if the certainty of that punishment being everlasting is reduced to some span of time then they rationalize that their loved ones or perhaps even themselves can endure that punishment and then be no more.
    However that is not what is taught in the inspired Word of God.
    In referring to the abode of those who will be in God’s acceptable presence in the New Testament the phrases used are “eternal life”, “everlasting life” and “life everlasting”. In referring to the abode of those who will suffer God’s wrath the phrases used are “everlasting fire”, “everlasting punishment”, “everlasting destruction” and “eternal damnation”. It is worth diligent consideration that in inspiring the New Testament the Holy Spirit used the exact same Greek word for each instance of the word that would be translated ‘everlasting’ or ‘eternal’. That Greek word is aionios, (ahee-o'-nee-os); and A. H. Strong gives as it meaning - perpetual, eternal, for ever, everlasting.

(Revelation 14:11) "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

    We have seen in this brief study a progression of ‘lying words’ and how those who believe in them find comfort therein. But it is a false comfort, a comfort that will prove to be unprofitable, and in many instances eternally so, unto them.
    Satan lied to Eve about God’s commandments and therefore all of mankind became dead in trespasses and sin.
    Satan has, through his ministers, lied about the Creatorship of God. In a futile attempt to give his fallen and depraved heart comfort man has believed that lie about his Creator and mankind’s responsibility to Him.
    Satan has, through his ministers, lied about the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. And man has joyfully embraced that lie because it gives him comfort in his sins.