Lying and deception will not advance your cause. They are negative traits that do not lead to abundance. A leader who practices lying and deception does not have a good future ahead. If you are a leader, avoid lying and deception.
Lying and deception are negative traits that cause division and discord among brethren. “A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends” (Proverbs 16:28, NASB). Such characteristics will never lead to increase. Deception will cause you to lose everything, to divide everything, to fragment everything and to break up everything. Leaders who lie to different sections of their people to please them end up losing everything.
Lying and deception are negative traits of people who imagine evil things. “Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil…” (Proverbs 12:20). A person who continually imagines evil is not going to become prosperous. The evil that he imagines will be his own downfall. Notice what the Bible says. “Though they intended evil against you and devised a plot they will not succeed …” (Psalm 21:11, NASB).
The Iron Dealer
A certain businessman once had a great desire to make a long journey. He decided to leave part of his estate with a friend so that if his journey was not successful he would have something to return to. He delivered a great number of bars of iron, which were a principal part of his wealth, in trust to one of his friends. He asked his friend to look after the iron bars for him and set out on his business trip.
Sometime after, having had little success on his business trip, he returned home. The first thing he did was to go to his friend and asked for his iron. But his friend, who owed several sums of money, had sold the iron to pay his own debts. He said to his friend, “Truly friend, I put your iron into a room that was locked and secure, imagining that it would be as secure as a bank. But one day, something terrible happened and a rat which no one could have suspected entered the room and ate up all the iron bars.
“Wow,” the businessman said, pretending to believe his friend. “This is a terrible misfortune. I have always known that rats loved eating iron bars and I have suffered terribly from them in the past.”
He continued, “Because of my past experience with rats I fully understand what has happened today and how the rat ate up all my iron bars.
When his friend heard this answer, he was extremely pleased that the businessman was so easily taken in by his story of the rat eating the iron. He then decided to invite him to dinner the next day as a consolation for the missing iron. The businessman promised that he would be there.
However, on the way home that day, he met one of his friend’s children and he carried him home with him and locked him up in a room. The next day he went to his friend’s house for the dinner. There was chaos in the house and everyone seemed to be in a crisis. He asked, “What’s going on here? What is happening?”
“O, my dear friend,” answered the other, “I beg you to excuse me, if you do not see me as cheerful as I normally am. I have lost one of my children. I have searched for him in the whole city but I cannot find him.”
“O!” replied the businessman, “I am so sad to hear about this tragedy. Indeed, yesterday evening as I departed from here I saw a little chicken flying in the air with a child in its claws. I cannot tell whether it was your child or not.”
“What!” Exclaimed the friend, “Are you not ashamed to tell such an egregious lie? How could you have seen a chicken that cannot fly and that weighs one kilo carrying away a boy that weighs forty kilos?”
“Why are you amazed,” replied the businessman. “We live in a country where one rat can eat a hundred tons of iron bars. Is it such a wonder for a chicken to fly in such a country? In such a country, is it such a wonder for a little chicken to carry away a weight of forty kilos?”
The friend, upon hearing this realized that the businessman was not such a fool as he had taken him to be. So he begged for forgiveness for cheating the businessman and restored him the value of his iron so he could have his son back.
As you can see from this story, people seem to thrive on lying and deception, each trying to outwit the other. Lying and deception are negative traits that lead to punishment and destruction. Punishment and perishing are your future because of your lies and deception.
A false witness shall not be unpunished and HE THAT SPEAKETH LIES SHALL PERISH
Proverbs 25:18
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By Dag Heward-Mills