There is another type of lie which is very prevalent in the church—exaggeration. Please bear in mind that inaccurate numbers and inaccurate words, as well as the love of big words, strong words, or exaggerated words, are different forms of lies because there is falsehood in all of them.
Today if you want to know where a saint’s heart is before the Lord, all you have to do is tell him something and ask him to tell others about it. You will immediately know where his heart is before the Lord. A person who fears God, who has learned the proper lessons, and who has been dealt with by God will consider speaking a great thing. He will not dare to speak carelessly or spread words carelessly. He will pay attention to accurate words. When you commit a word to a person who has not been dealt with or disciplined by the Lord, he will spread the word zealously. In his spreading you will find that he is a frivolous, deceitful, and dishonest person. He can add many words of his own and withhold words that should be spoken.
When many people speak, inflated numbers are quoted. No church in Shanghai has a sitting capacity of five thousand. Any preacher with some training will know the capacity of a hall with just one look. However, many reports about revival meetings have described the attendance at ten or even twenty thousand people. Even if every person stood on the head of another, there would still not be enough room for everyone. Yet these are words from Christian workers. This is exaggeration! This kind of exaggeration is lying. We magnify others’ mistakes and minimize our own. We exaggerate others’ errors and try the best to reduce our own. This is lying as well.
Today I cannot say that all of God’s children become honest after they are saved. If they set their minds before the Lord to learn these lessons for five years, perhaps they will be an honest person by the end of the five years. Allow me to say a strong word: A person must continually reject all kinds of lies. Whenever you find yourself speaking something inaccurately, you have to repudiate it relentlessly. If you practice this, perhaps you will become an honest person after three or five years. You cannot expect a person who is careless and capricious about his speaking to become an honest person overnight. Lies and inaccuracies are common maladies among Christians. Everyone in this world follows Satan and everyone lies. Some people are slow, while others are smart, but everyone lies. Some lie without skill while others lie with skill, but everyone lies. We need to deal with the Lord constantly so that we are warned as soon as we lie or touch the spirit of lying.
How important it is to be honest, yet how unnatural it is to be honest! Our very nature is dishonest, and from the time we were born, we have lied. We like to speak according to our preference, but not according to truth. A child must learn to do things step by step from the very beginning of his human life. As God’s children, we also need to learn our lessons from the very beginning. If we become careless, we will lie and speak inaccurate words.
The problem of lying is a very common one. It is the darkest sin and the most common sin. Many people regard this as a light matter. If we have a problem with our speaking, two things will happen: First, the church will find itself filled with death, and Christians will find it impossible to walk in oneness. Second, God cannot make us ministers of His word, and our usefulness will stop. We can still speak a little on the Bible, on truth, and on doctrine, and we can still give a speech, but we will not be able to serve as ministers of God’s word. In order to be a minister of God’s word, one must be honest in his speaking. If he is not honest, God cannot use him.
May we all see the need to reject lies. We should not speak according to our own desire. We should reject all lies completely. We should not speak in a subjective way, but in an objective way. We should speak according to facts, according to what we hear, and not according to how we feel. If God’s children practice this, a straight path will await them.