Sin leads to death, and lying is a sin. How many of us lie to ourselves? We tell ourselves that what we do pleases Yahweh. We lie not only to Yahweh but to ourselves. We do not see that our lies lead to our ultimate demise.
Many decades ago, I once knew a young girl that tried to convince me to smoke her mother’s cigarette. I unwaveringly said no to her request to smoke. She smoked the cigarette coughing. After catching her breath she began to grin showing me how wonderful it was to do something she should not do. We were both eight or nine at the time. She even confessed her mother would not approve in the empty apartment. We parted ways. I went home to my mother and younger siblings. My friend remained at home thinking up mischief.
How many of us do things knowing that Yahweh would not approve?
This friend came by on another day to tempt me to steal this time. She took me to a neighborhood liqueur store. I had no idea that she intended to steal. I thought she had money to shop. So I went along with her to discover she steals too. She asked me to take something, but I said and gestured no. We walked out the store. She offered to share her chips, but I said no thanks. I wouldn’t eat anything stolen. I knew it was not right, and I possessed a keen sense of right and wrong instilled in me from home.
Children like adults need direction and guidance growing up to know how to decipher right from wrong. A lot of children suffer as children and as adults because they did not possess a proper upbringing with clear standards of right and wrong. Others had poor examples and/or grew up in a chaotic home environment with a missing parent for various reasons.
My upbringing a bit more traditional allowed me to learn the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. I chose to obey the lessons instilled in me in my family. When tested, I passed.
Another day she invited me to a baseball game at a park and brought along her cousins. We went into two different types of stores on the way to the game and the same two stores on the way back home. I observed these children steal with ease. They encourage me to steal, but I said no. I didn’t participate.
This is what sin does. It tempts us and lures us into things that will lead to our ultimate destruction. It makes it easier to steal or lie the next time around. It looks easy and the rewards seems immediate and inviting, but the end of sin is ultimately death. This unfortunately is not apparent to those seemingly sinning with impunity.
When you take even a one degree turn off the path that leads to life by choosing to sin, the path eventually after many years will take you so far away from the true path that leads to life that you will lose your way. You won’t see or discern the way of life. These dishonest habits will change you into someone you no longer recognize nor respect.
Then you must go to Yahweh upon your knees and ask Him humbly to forgive you and help you to overcome sin in your life. Yahweh will forgive you and remove the chains of sin from around you freeing you from your addiction to lying, stealing and/or whatever sin you may find yourself entrapped with due to a bad decision to walk away from the way that leads to everlasting life.
Yahweh gave us Ten Commandments that He spoke down the mountain to all humanity not just the Israelites in the desert. Those Ten Commandment represent and hold the key to wisdom. When you come to appreciate and respect these fundamental commands that come from the Creator, you come to know and understand true wisdom that ultimately leads to life eternal with Yahweh.
Study the Ten Commandments below and see if your life aligns according to Yahweh’s standards. If you discover you fall short in any area, you need to go on your knees and ask Yahweh to forgive you and remove all sins from you life. Then you can walk free of sin and holy with Yahweh as Enoch walked with Yahweh. As Abraham was called a friend of Yahweh, you can be called a friend of Yahweh too!
Exodus 20 Amplified Bible (AMP)
The Ten Commandments
1 Then God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself any idol, or any likeness (form, manifestation) of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth [as an object to worship]. 5 You shall not worship them nor serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely mine], visiting (avenging) the iniquity (sin, guilt) of the fathers on the children [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers], to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing graciousness and steadfast lovingkindness to thousands [of generations] of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain [that is, irreverently, in false affirmations or in ways that impugn the character of God]; for the Lord will not hold guiltless nor leave unpunished the one who takes His name in vain [disregarding its reverence and its power].
8 “Remember the Sabbath (seventh) day to keep it holy (set apart, dedicated to God). 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath [a day of rest dedicated] to the Lord your God; on that day you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock or the temporary resident (foreigner) who stays within your [city] gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested (ceased) on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy [that is, set it apart for His purposes].
12 “Honor (respect, obey, care for) your father and your mother, so that your days may be prolonged in the land the Lord your God gives you.
13 “You shall not commit murder (unjustified, deliberate homicide).
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal [secretly, openly, fraudulently, or through carelessness].
16 “You shall not testify falsely [that is, lie, withhold, or manipulate the truth] against your neighbor (any person).
17 “You shall not covet [that is, selfishly desire and attempt to acquire] your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
18 Now all the people witnessed the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the smoking mountain; and as they looked, the people were afraid, and they trembled [and moved backward] and stood at a [safe] distance. 19 Then they said to Moses, “You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him [that is, a profound reverence for Him] will remain with you, so that you do not sin.”