To be double-tongued is to lie. A person is lying when he first says one thing and then turns around and says something else, when he first says yes and then no, when he first says that something is good and then says that it is bad, or when he first agrees that something is right and then says that it is wrong. This is not just a matter of a wavering mind but a matter of lying.
We tell others what we like and keep silent about what we do not like. We speak about what is profitable to us and keep silent about things that are not profitable to us. This is also a kind of lying. Many people purposely withhold half of a story. They withhold the things that are profitable to others, especially things that are profitable to their enemies, and remain silent about them. Instead, they talk about things that hurt, damage, or bring loss to others. This is lying. Many people do not speak according to truth and reality, but according to their own likes and dislikes. Many words are not based on facts but on sentiments. Such people speak certain things because they like to speak them, or they speak about certain persons because they like them. They change their tone when the conversation turns to people or things they do not like. This kind of speaking is totally according to one’s likes and dislikes. It is speaking according to one’s emotion, not according to truth and reality. Please keep in mind that this is lying. Inaccurate words are a serious sin. Willful deception is even more serious, and it is a greater sin before God. We must not speak according to our emotion but according to facts. Either we must not speak at all, or we must speak according to facts and the truth. We cannot speak according to our feeling. If we do, we are lying willfully before God.
Furthermore, we must learn to put away our own feelings; we should not have any expectations of others. Many words today represent hopes rather than facts. They do not convey facts; they only convey a man’s hopes. A person often reviles a sister or a brother according to his sentiment rather than according to fact. He only hopes that a sister is as bad as he thinks, yet he speaks as if the sister is indeed that bad. Or he only hopes that a brother will fall, yet he speaks as if the brother has fallen already. He speaks according to what he wishes would happen, not according to what has actually happened. Do you see the fundamental problem here? Often a person speaks according to what he expects in his heart. His words do not convey what has actually happened. Rather than speaking of the actual situation, he speaks of what he expects the situation to be.
Why is it that many words are altered when they pass from one mouth to another? A statement often is changed completely after passing through three or four mouths. Why? This is because each person adds his own thoughts instead of finding out the facts. No one tries to find out the facts, yet everyone tries to add his own thoughts. This is lying.
There is one basic principle of speaking: One must not speak according to his feeling or hope. A person is lying when he is not speaking according to truth and reality but according to expectation and hope. We should learn to speak according to facts and not express any opinion of our own. If we are giving our opinion, we need to make it clear that this is our opinion. When we are speaking a fact, we need to state that this is a fact. We must separate our opinions from facts. We should not mix facts with our opinions. What we think a person is and what a person actually is are two different things. At the most we can say that the fact indicates one thing but we have a different thought concerning the matter.