Liars

by Richard McCuistian

 It was a nice late-model convertible, still under the new vehicle warranty,  and anything legitimately wrong with the car was to be paid for by the manufacturer.  The lady had driven the car in for service, and Joe had a repair order ticket to check the charging system and the battery.  It seems that she had detected slower cranking sometimes and unusally dim headlights after dark. On the service lot, the car started crisply.  In the shop, the charging system was pushing the needle on the test equipment to a healthy hundred-plus amps; nothing at all wrong there.  Further testing showed the battery to be just as healthy.  Joe could find no reason to replace  the battery or make any repairs at all; the electrical connections were clean and tight.  The dispatcher told Joe the owner was waiting, and so he pulled the car around to the write-up, where she was standing near the cashier window.  He noticed that she had her radio set on the local Christian gospel station, and a fire-and-brimstone preacher was hammering home the truths of Scripture as he pulled through the big doors near where she stood.  She was a thin woman in her mid-fifties, and as  Joe opened the door on her convertible, she hurried over to the car.

 "You did put me a battery in there, didn't you?"

 "No ma'am, I didn't.  The battery you have is as healthy as a horse."

 "Well, I'm afraid to drive it at night.  That battery has been in there three years and I know it needs another one."  She reached and turned on the headlights, pointing to the vacuum flourescent displays on the clock and radio.  "See how dim they are?"  Joe turned the headlight knob and they brightened up.

 "Is this why you wanted a battery?  This is normal."

 "Uh, well, uh, no, not really, uh, when I let the convertible top up and down at night it seems to make the car start slower sometimes.  Besides, my daughter had a car with a weak battery in it and when somebody jumped it off they burned up a bunch of wiring.  I just know my car needs a battery.  Will you please put one in for me?" 

 Based on the radio station she had been listening to, Joe had the idea that she was a church-going woman, so he thought he'd try a different strategy, just to see what she'd say.

 "You know I may need to lie on the warranty claim so the manufacturer will pay for the battery.  Is that ok?"  She never hesitated...

 "Yeah, lie to 'em, I don't care.  Just put me a battery in there."

 Joe wondered later if she had ever read some of the Scripture passages that come to mind about lying and liars.

 "There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:  Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innnocent blood..."   

Proverbs 6:16-17

 Just those first three eliminate a vast number of people; this part of the list moves from hateful pride on through lying all the way to murder.  Let's look at another one.

 "...it is better to be a poor man than a liar."                      Proverbs 19:22b

 The scary part about all this is that all of us have lied at one point or another, and we all stand convicted.  Children learn to lie at a very early age, and parents have to teach them not to, although some parents by their very example do just the opposite. It'll cost them one day... But what kind of pressure would it take to squeeze a lie out of you or me today?

 The '98 Lincoln Joe was working on had problems with the factory installed cell phone, and he had to remove the back seat to access a "black box" that needed replacing.  The seat was a very light grey leather color; Joe didn't need to take a chance on soiling the upholstery,  and the cleanest place around was the roof of the car, so Joe chose to lay the seat  up there to keep it off the dirty floor and out of the way.  Leather upholstery doesn't hurt paint, but sharp objects do.  As Joe made the transition from the inside of the car to the roof, small metal bracket on the corner of the seat contacted the shiny paint between the rear door and the rear windshield, producing a nasty scratch in the clear-coat.  Since the man who owned the car was such a good customer, the fixed operations manager stopped by to see how the repairs were going on the cell phone.  Joe had some choices concerning the scratch.  The old man who owned the car might not notice it for a week or two, and even if he did, he couldn't prove Joe had done it.  Joe could just keep quiet about the scratch and nobody would be the wiser.  If, however,  the old man did notice the scratch and return to ask about it, Joe would have to tell the truth, or else be a liar, and that's an abomination to God.  The choice was clear.  Joe called the manager's attention to his mistake and took responsibility.

 "I scratched the paint while I was taking the seat out. Come have a look."

The manager walked around the car and felt the scratch.

 "That won't buff out," said the manager, "they'll need to paint the panel."  He showed it to the rich man who owned the Lincoln...

 "Don't worry about it," the old man told him, "if I can't live with it I'll bring it back."
 Now, what was so hard about that?  I'll tell you what could have made it harder.  If Joe had the idea that the manager would make him pay to have the panel painted, it would have been much  more difficult to tell the truth.  In many cases, our pocketbooks will dictate our measure of truthfulness, especially when a lot of our money is at stake, either to gain or lose.

 Joe stood facing an angry customer and the head sales manager one day.  It seems that he had taken his vehicle from Joe's place of employment to another repair outlet and the mechanics at the other place told him Joe didn't do the work he claimed he had done.  The sales manager was no dummy.  The guilty will run when nobody's chasing them, and he knew he could tell who was lying by watching both of Joe and the customer as they faced each other.  The man stood there and made his accusation.  Joe stood his ground, looked the man dead in the eye and shook his head.

 "No sir.  I did exactly what you see written on that repair order."

 The customer wasn't so sure of himself any more, and his voice cracked  with stress as he whined and wheedled at the sales manager.  As they walked away, Joe heard the sales manager say to the customer:

 "I won't question that man's integrity.  I believe what he's saying."
 If we always tell the truth, even when it costs us, we don't need anything to "back us up" when we speak.  That's why Jesus tells us:

 "...let your statement be 'yes, yes', or 'no, no'; and anything beyond these is evil."
   Matthew 5:37

 There's no need to swear an oath to lend weight to our words; a pattern of truthfulness will go farther than a thousand oaths.  If we always have the truth as our ally, it will be much easier to stand before Christ.  The "down side" is that many honest people who don't lie are still going to hell because they don't know Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.  But as we consider the sin of lying, even as Christians, we need to look very carefully at one more passage:

 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part  will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
   Revelation 21:8

 Satan is the father of lies (Acts 5:3).  To yield to the temptation to lie is to express his nature and infuriate God.  God is the father of truth, and if you have totally yielded yourself to the Holy Spirit who lives within every believer, you will not lie under any circumstances.  If you do something you shouldn't and plan to lie about it, you fall in the category of those who willfully and habitually sin.  It's this sort of premeditated sin John wrote about when he said:

 "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." I John 3:9

 The reason "all liars" go to hell is because a practicing liar is a child of the devil.  This may seem harsh, but it's the truth according to God's Word.  God hates lies; according to His Word, no liar can expect to spend eternity with Him...  R.W.M.