Liars and mischief makers

“a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
-Proverbs 6:19

I’ve been very interested in these last few verses. Normally, as we have gone through Proverbs, we are seeing truisms. They are statements of advice, and not necessarily promises of a return. We actually run into trouble when we try to apply them universally, because they were never meant for that.

We speak like this all the time. I can give general advice about marriage or finances that may not work in all cases. It doesn’t mean the advice was bad – it only means that there are outside forces.

So not every child who is raised on the Word will be a good person. Generally, they will, but sometimes not. Not everyone who is honest and upright will find success. Not every wicked man will find punishment in this life.

That was a tangent, but with a point. I’ve enjoyed this section very much because of how specific and universal it is. These are seven things God hates. You can be sure of them. It doesn’t matter who you are or what the situation, God hates these things. These are things that God considers to be betrayals.

The sixth in the list is lying, which I think would rule just about everyone out in the list of “good people of the earth.” We lie all the time. It’s almost a second nature.

This is actually the second time in this list he’s mentioned liars, though this time it is specifically in our testimony about others. We can lie about general things, and God hates that, but that’s not what this is about. This is when we lie about people at work. We lie about those we see on the street. We say things that aren’t true to try to make ourselves seem better or to promote our own view of the situation. We exaggerate and twist words. We slander against them.

And we keep doing it whenever we can find an advantage in it.

The final one on the list is the act of sowing discord, or making mischief. This is actually added to the list as the worst of them all, and yet this is something we see rather often. We see people spread gossip at home, church, or at work. We see people, for their own ends, try to stir up anger in others in those same places. Sometimes we seek out chaos because we are upset, or because we want something, or simply because it will help us out. We want others involved in our own pet issues, so we make trouble.

False teachers do this in the church. They come in with foreign doctrines and try to wedge them into the body of Christ. They come with their own issues, whether it be sexual issues, or that women should be pastors, or that God doesn’t want us to drink alcohol, or that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, or that the true Gospel is economic or political freedom. They are making mischief in the church, and it offends God.

The true Gospel, the Gospel that can save us from God’s wrath against these sins that we have all committed, is this – that Jesus came to earth to die in our place. His Blood satisfied the justice demanded for our sin. Because of that we can be forgiven. Because of His resurrection, we can know that we too will be resurrected, and that we can have eternal life with the Father.

We have all done things the Father hates. But because of the Son, that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.