“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16, NKJV).
You shall not lie about anyone that God places within the sphere of your life, nor lie to them. As with all the other archetypal commandments of the Decalogue, the ninth-order laws also represent many biblical teachings related to the act of deception. Any lie or half-truth, any word or deed deliberately designed to deceive, distract, obfuscate, delude or alter the genuine perception of existing reality, and done through impure motives or for malicious purposes, is forbidden here. For God's laws forbade any deed which causes any unjust loss, harm or death. And this is what lies and delusions always end up doing. Even if a person tells the truth, but not the whole truth, and reveals only enough truth to keep oneself safe from accusations, or deliberately leaves out the parts that another needs to know to make a right decision, that partial truth is actually a lie. For the lack of relevant information could potentially cause someone to make bad decisions or commit sins, result in unjust loss, harm or death. Of course, we may need to hold back some truth at times, or even remain entirely silent, if it is God's will, especially when dealing with souls who want to use the truth to unjustly harm or kill others. In fact, we should always be careful about what we say and should be slow to speak. So the ninth-order commandments are specifically against wilful deception, all that leads to unjust loss, harm or death.
Of course, some may think their little “white lies” will cause no harm, and will not lead anyone into any sin. In fact, some think their “white lies” actually accomplish good. But working with lies is not true wisdom from God. Rather, lying is usually the first instinct of the mind of flesh, to spare the flesh. Now we do see some rare cases where lying to a liar makes a truth. Lying to a psychopath or deluded soul, or deceiving that one in order to save an innocent life, might work good, and that good is a kind of truth, for it follows the principles of God to nullify evil and save their victims from their evil. Nevertheless, “white lies” most often hinder, misdirect or outright nullify ultimate, long-term and godly good. Then a little lie can build up into a big and far more harmful or outright deadly lie. For more lies must usually be told to support the first “little white lie,” until all those lies grow into a monster of deadly delusions. It is like a negative plus a negative is a greater negative (-1 + -1 = -2). A lie added to a lie merely creates a greater lie in most circumstances. On the other hand, a negative multiplied against another negative, no matter how large or small either may be, always gives a positive result (-1 x -1 = +1 and -1 x -1,000 = +1,000). A negative multiplier provides the negation of the negative multiplicand, and visa versa, producing a positive. God often turns one of His enemies against another of His enemies until they destroy each other, leaving the land in peace. A lie or a number of lies from one can negate a lie or a number of other lies from the other, and can result in a positive. However, it is extremely difficult for an elect spirit to find one or more correct “multipliers” that will actually negate the specific lies that one needs to negate in God’s enemies. And the “lies” that an elect one may use as a “multiplier” against other lies, the kind that can most effectively nullify the other lies, is usually the kind that merely exposes the contradictions in the other lies. For instance, if a local pastor tells the lie that the richest and most powerful are the most blessed because they have been most faithful to God, and are superior to the less faithful poor people, one may then tell the “lie” that one must then conclude that Hitler, Stalin, Trump and other vile, immoral, ruthless, murdering sons of Satan must all be more faithful to God than Jesus, the apostles and the one who is telling that lie. Now that might negate that lie for some hearers. But, in real life, most deluded souls who think that way will not hear a word one says. And it is usually easier to do as Jesus did, to teach enough truths to turn a lie into a positive (-1 + 2 = +1). Truth is the best weapon against lies. Light always shines into darkness, and the darkness cannot stop the truth. For darkness is the absence of power and light. Darkness is nothing, empty, a default lack of energy, whose only power is to make blind, or to deceive one into thinking something is not what it truly is, or that nothing is something.
A “white lie” may appear to help, temporarily. But it does not adequately deal with the problems that caused one to tell the “white lie” in the first place. Then the original problem usually grows worse. And, at minimum, even a little lie can cause others to distrust the liar. The genuine godly love of the spirit can be hindered because of this lack of trust, since love can only grow in the soil of truth. Love cannot exist without complete trust, and trust can only grow if it is nourished with pure truth. Thus, there is no situation where a lie will ever accomplish the greatest, most beneficial, longest lasting and strongest good through just and God-like love, in the power of Jesus Christ. Cheating, deception, distractions from the root causes of a problem, confusion worked by false reasoning, obfuscation to cause the ignorant to trust lying “experts” and wanna-be gods, or any other methods of turning souls away from the truths and reality God created, all these delusions and lies work more harm than good, no matter how noble and just one thinks their purposes might be. It is usually better to remain silent than to lie. However, if God calls one to speak out and rebuke a destructive sin or warn a soul about the dangers of some sin, remaining silent can also be a type of a lie. Letting one be taken captive or killed, by withholding truth from that soul, is a form of deception and murder. It is a sin. So we must let our spirits grow mature and be well-taught by the Holy Spirit of Jesus, so the minds of our spirits become able to rebuke the minds of our flesh, then use our flesh to speak and work the truth in love.
Covetousness has been the cause of most wars, rebellions, persecutions and conflicts in history. But countless false testimonies, lies and delusions have been the principle means used by men to start and perpetuate all those kinds of destruction, violence, oppression and murder. Propaganda, lies to dehumanize an “enemy” consisting of brothers and sisters in God, works of delusions to incite hate in soldiers so they will rise up and kill their fellow man without mercy, are all tools of Satan’s world order and should never be believed by God’s elect. And God’s children definitely should never, ever employ these kinds of deception. Every elect heart, whether one yet knows the name of Jesus or not, must seek the truth. And the truth is that there is a big difference between our physical enemies and our real enemies. Our most real and greatest enemies walk among us, in every land on earth. Our greatest enemies are not just the lying spirits of Satan and his demons, but also the deluded, lying, murdering human spirits born of their lying, murdering father, the devil. And both the demonic and human spirits come to us disguised as messengers of light. Meanwhile, many spirits of many of our lesser physical enemies are actually our elect brothers and sisters, created in God's image, who are able to us and worthy of our love. In rage provoked by delusions, lies or twisted truths, our minds of flesh focus on physical enemies, then follow our greater enemies into battle against lesser enemies. So we kill neighbours and family members at their command. We think our siblings in God are evil fools, idiots, useless and worthy of death. Yet we bow before those who are truly worthy of death in the eyes of God. All this delusional wrath bears false witness against our physical enemies, while it also bears false witness to promote our greater enemies. We also lie about the greatness or goodness of those who initiate wars through covetousness and sin. We falsely esteem and flatter those souls for our own carnal purposes. But the rage their propaganda incites is itself a great liar, a demon making mountains out of molehills, falsely portraying human physical enemies as demons, falsely exalting greedy souls to the status of gods. Covetous propagandists divide and conquer through lies, through false accusations that are never founded upon any proper and thorough investigations, nor any real evidence. They lie to justify their own greed and lusts, falsely make their sins look insignificant, as they make the just causes or virtues of others appear to be evil, as they cause us to lie to ourselves.
If we believe and bear false witness for or against others, even about ourselves, we are sinful liars. And lies have always been so prevalent that almost no one has ever had a sound, honest estimation of anyone, even themselves. Then so many lies have always been told about God that there are very few Christians and Jews that even remotely know the real God, His true nature and attributes. Thus, most have actually worshipped a false god, a demon whom their religious institutions have renamed “yahweh” or “jesus,” an idol invented by the lies of men to work their own evil purposes. We hear so many lies from preachers, rabbis, philosophers, politicians, heralds of news, scientists, historians and our neighbours that we find it almost impossible to know what the truth really is. And the harm those lies have done, in addition to the good works those lies have sabotaged, severely affect our personal lives, churches and societies, as well as our relationship with the real God and Creator of us all. By these lies, love grows cold, letting damnation flood into our streets and homes. Distrust, loss of all kinds of needed goods and productivity, bitter hatred, broken homes, suffering, death, murder and every other kind of evil imaginable results from these lies and delusions, either directly or indirectly.
This is why God's Word testifies that liars shall go to hell (Rev. 21:8). God raises each human life from the womb. Yet men portray their own brothers and sisters as monsters without souls, and invoke wrath against them, usually in arrogance, through carnal pride or for personal, selfish gain. The bigot's rhetoric—masterful words to defame other lands, other races or other kinds of people, whether those others are truly evil or not—works against God, against God’s words of truth, against God’s will, against the people they lie about, against themselves, and against everyone else in their land. When they disobey this ninth commandment, they serve Satan himself. Anything which makes another human being to be less than human, any form of dehumanization, is a false testimony and forbidden by God. While our spirits are bound to the eyes and ears of these bodies of flesh, we are simply incapable of seeing any spirit of any other human being. Thus, we cannot know, with any degree of certainty, whether or not that one’s spirit is a child of God’s Spirit or a child of Satan’s spirit. Therefore, God does not allow any human being to judge the spirit of another human being, to definitively declare that another human being is not one of God’s elect, to judge whether or not any other spirit is a child of Satan, to declare that any other sinner deserves less respect than we, who are all sinners, deserve. Only God Himself bears the authority and is able to judge any spirit in that way.
Then we must also realize that God freely grants the rain and sun, the earth and all the resources that provide for the needs of all, to all. God gives to all justly and equitably. Therefore, if we believe that some sinners deserve more of God’s physical providence than other sinners, or that some sinners do not deserve to be granted any physical necessities at all, those who believe these dehumanizing lies will be condemned as much as those who created those lies. We must not only keep ourselves from lying, but also guard our hearts from lies, and investigate the claims of others properly, to see if they are telling the truth. For, in God's eyes, it is just as much of a sin to believe a lie as it is to tell a lie, if one believes a lie through wilful ignorance or wilful negligence, by refusing to find out the real truth.
Countless deaths, persecutions and unjust deeds have resulted from a failure to fulfill the intent of God’s ninth-order laws. And, of course, the lovelessness in families, churches, and societies is also a result of lies. We have even believed the most unbelievable and irrational lies possible, because they have been told so often that we have stopped examining them, and now accept them as truths. Men give false testimony concerning the character of others, then go out to persecute or kill them. Every time we work ourselves into a rage and make war through wrath, it always through a lie. For truth will always make us plan a loving, just and wise strategy to deal with a problem, and most often involves a peaceful solution or, if absolutely necessary, a truly just war that strives to love and care for innocents while nullifying evil. This is why one of the best ways to control one's temper is by striving to find the truth, the whole truth (including the spiritual truths regarding the nature of every sinner and sin), and nothing but the truth, to wisely comprehend the realities regarding all that is causing one's anger and one’s own motives, to understand literally all the spiritual and physical reasons for one’s anger. And much of this information can only come from Jesus. So, if our spirits honestly pray to the real Jesus Himself, in truth, casting aside our pride and anger of the flesh, our spirits may retain some anger against the sins and lies themselves, but we will act mercifully toward the sinner, and to the real sinner, letting go of all anger against anyone who has been falsely accused.
With lies, men work themselves into a rage against ordinary people who are actually just like them, portraying those others as beasts or devils. False churches and secular governments have used lies to advance their power and wealth from the beginning of time. Hitler used lies to plunder the Jews, to distract the attention of the people away from the real causes of their suffering, so they would blame the Jewish scapegoats instead. Rather than accepting the inconvenient truth that all the blame for all their national troubles should have been laid squarely on the shoulder of their own psychopathic leaders, like Hitler himself, and the other wealthy human gods ruling their land and other lands, all of whom were exploiting the people to death, Hitler transferred the blame to the Jews through a lie, by making the people believe that the Jews caused all their troubles. So Hitler’s people slaughtered millions of Jews through their lying wrath. And, after that lie gained hold on the souls in their land, after enough thugs and liars sided with Hitler, those who knew that Hitler was lying could not stop that lie. Because the people did not rise up to stop that lie soon enough, that lie took the whole nation captive. Then they not only murdered about six million innocent Jews, but their lie began to make the people think they were a superior race who should take over many other lands in the world, to build a utopia filled with lying bigots just like themselves. So they believed it was only right and fair to murder their brothers and sisters in other lands, to steal their homes, land and resources, to build societies that served only them, through the exploitation of countless dehumanized souls. And now we see new Hitlers rising up all over the world, even in the most powerful nations on earth, men like Trump, Xi and Putin, who are telling exactly the same kinds of lies that will murder countless souls.
Throughout history, most lands have committed this same kind of sin through the same kinds of lies.
Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, Japan, France, England, Spain, America, Russia and many other lands have committed this same kind of sin which murders the innocent. And this kind of sin will always continue to be committed, through the same kinds of lies, until Jesus returns to rule the earth. Humanists, both secular and theistic humanists, specialize in these kinds of lies. For two and a half millenniums, true Jews, true Christians, visible minorities, ethnic groups and many others have been persecuted, have suffered horribly, due to the half-truths and outright lies proclaimed by humanists. Humanists created the lie about evolution, which was the root lie that Hitler and racial “purists” used to try to “prove” their own superiority as a race, and to justify their “right” to enslave or exterminate other races. Before that, religious liars, particularly the humanistic Roman Catholics, told lies about Jews, Protestants, Muslims, pagans and others, just to provoke murder, so they could steal their lands and property, though all belonged to God alone. And the lies of the Roman Catholics also laid the foundation of the lies that the secular humanist, Hitler, fed to his people. What is worse, many elect among Jews, Christians, visible minorities, ethnic groups and others often responded to these false testimonies by creating their own dehumanizing slander against the ones who lied about them. Thus, they made themselves one with those who persecuted them. But God did not support either side, although God did destroy the worst liars in the end. God crushed Hitler and his faithful Nazi worshippers from within, and through the power of other nations who were just a little less evil.
Then anger and violence destroys family members in their own homes through lies and delusions as well. One invents or believes false testimonies against one’s own spouse and children, stirring up wrath until that one divides and tears down the entire family unit, and may also violently attack or even murder one’s own God-given spouse or children. And men are not the only ones who do this, who stir up their own hatred and anger against their own loved ones. Women do this just as much as men. Women more often destroy their homes through words than violence, but are perfectly capable of even extreme violence too. Some spouses are actually psychopaths, whose whole life is a delusion built on lies. Then there is gossip. These self-serving liars destroy whole nations, churches, homes or personal lives with few little lying words based on irrational assumptions and false information. We have all experienced the consequences of malicious misinformation. Marriages break up, leaving children torn between parents and often ostracized by friends, all due to gossip, conspiracy theories, and the distrust born of these lies. Ministries and churches are ruined, businesses fail, good people are fired from jobs, whole nations are divided, persecutions destroy entire segments of society, rebellions cripple nations, wars kill millions, God is blasphemed, and evil reigns by these false testimonies, lies born of anger and giving birth to anger. Frustration leads to a lie, and lies lash out so viciously that they murder the innocent. If we could see how lies harm us and our loved ones, even our nations, if all lies and their consequences could be revealed to us, we would be utterly horrified.
Lies are the links of a steel chain designed to keep a soul enslaved by the ruler of the world order, so one will labour incessantly in sin, night and day, without rest and through a dark and empty pride. And nothing but the truth that Jesus can teach to one’s spirit, the reality He reveals directly to one’s spirit by the authority and power of God, can possibly set one free from that slavery, and deliver a soul into a humble life of trusting God and His words of truth. Now, when Satan chains one to his lies, we should be aware that his principal lie is to make people believe they are much better and far more deserving of God’s land and resources than they truly are. The way the devil enslaves most souls is through flattery, making them believe they are superior. Satan deludes souls into believing they are gods who have the right to “own” God’s property instead of God, and that they deserve to “own” more than their neighbour, though all human beings are equal stewards of God’s property. As a result, their spirits seldom honestly and humbly turn to the Lord, as wretched and helpless sinners, for help in learning and applying the real truth God created. They want none of the admonishing, humbling and freeing truth that Jesus gives to our spirits, so our spirits can rule over our minds of flesh. Then whole nations become convinced that their money, military power, hard work, ingenuity, culture, scientific innovations and human wills will save them. But they inevitably fall into chaos, destruction and death, murdering countless innocent lives along the way. They invent their own laws and ways to replace God’s “primitive” laws and ways, and think they have outsmarted God. But they become abject fools committing selfish, lawless, ruthless and murderous sins. They become vicious, ruthless monsters, working unthinkable cruelty against their own dehumanized brothers and sisters.
When a land loves the lies that appease the pride and lusts of their flesh, rather than the spiritual truths created by God, God lets them become chained by those lies, so they are forced to serve Satan as his slaves. God hands them over to their own delusions. Then their own personal lives and the lives of their families must endure the incessant darkness of those delusions and lies, imprisoned and without hope, unloved and unloving, completely dead inside. No one’s mind of the spirit is wakened so it can be taught and trained to love; no one is being sanctified for salvation; no one finds their own God-given calling and destiny; no spirit is even able to see the spiritual wonders that are the essence of beauty in God’s creation; and no one’s spirit can enter Christ’s eternal Sabbath rest for their souls. Life becomes warped, distorted, hypocritical, fraudulent, foolish, dark and utterly empty.
Because the family is the foundation of all structures in every society—and the covenant between the spirit of a husband and the spirit of the wife, ratified by God Himself, is the model of all the other covenants that hold all societal structures together, including the highest human governments in a land—this is the first thing Satan attacks with his lies. In the old days, Satan would convince men that they owned their wives, that wives were their property. And their children, born of their wives also became their property. Therefore, they made their wives and children do their own will, instead of the will of the true Owner of all. Instead of building up the God-given aptitudes, gifts, skills, ministries and destinies of their wives and children, as God requires, each man forced his wife and children to serve him alone. Instead of being head stewards of God’s household, men became the gods of their households, and enemies of God. They saw themselves as Roman-like lords of owned humans, animals and goods, which they could treat in whatever way they wanted. Since men did not see their wives and children as equal spiritual heirs of God’s kingdom, their family units, along with every other societal structure in their land, including every level of government, became warped, unjust and completely dysfunctional. And the covenants between the spirits of husbands and wives, especially among the most arrogant elite gods of the land, were either never truly formed or broken almost as soon as they were created. As a consequence, ruthless ignorance prevailed in almost every family’s home, every church, every business, every organization and in every level of government.
Finally, after thousands of years of this lie, after seeing that this lie invariably produced nothing but loss, harm and death, people revolted against it. And this revolt was actually good. However, Satan soon hijacked this revolt with his lies, to maintain his power over the people. Instead of allowing the people to believe the obvious truth, that males and females were equal in spirit but different in their physical natures, regarding the works of the flesh as expressions of their spirits’ love, the devil soon convinced the people that both males and females were gods who owned all they owned, and could do whatever they wanted with what they owned, including their bodies. Again, no one was allowed to acknowledge that God owned them and all things, that they were stewards of God’s property and bore a duty to do His loving will on earth. So this was an even more distorted “mirror image” of the former system called “chauvinism.” God still was not to be God. Then, instead of making covenants of the spirits in marriages, both men and women could simply exploit the flesh of each other freely, whenever they desired sex. And, since flesh was the only thing they focused upon, both male flesh and female flesh were to be “equal.” Both kinds of flesh had to do the same works and serve in the same roles within the family and society, against the created natures of their flesh. There was to be literally nothing that a man’s flesh could do which a woman’s flesh could not also do equally well or better. Now women were to bear all the burdens of their natural role as females, plus all the burdens of the role of men, while men were to exploit them in loveless relationships and do nothing. Now there was to be no structure and no laws, just an ever-changing expectation of “normal” behaviours, which became increasingly abnormal and more lawless, since men did not provide any real structure, protection or stability for the women. So love grew completely cold in this environment of unnatural and frustrating competition to exploit one another, with the most manipulative psychopaths always winning over all in the end. Some might acknowledge that even male animals bring order, protection and food to the females, but male human beings were now forbidden to do so. In spite of what was obvious to honest, impartial eyes, all had to believe this lie, and any who did not were called villains.
God was actually pleased that feminists trashed many lies of ancient pagans and humanists. But God was not pleased with the humanistic lies that feminism soon replaced the old lies with, for the new lies were even worse than the old ones. God wants us to believe and apply the truths He created, which oppose both “chauvinism” and its mirror image, feminism. Through a lie, feminists assume they can do all that men can, and men assume their minds of flesh are the same as female minds of flesh. And both remain wilfully ignorant about all the adverse consequences of these lies. Then, as families, churches and societies fall apart, they wonder why this chaos exists. It never occurs to them that it is because everything they do is through the lusts of their flesh, while their barbaric spirits are starving. It is because God is not their God, created truths are not tested and found true, and God does not call, teach and train some men to be wise elders, to do works of cementing a framework for a just, wise structure of true principles in families, groups of people and the governments of the land.
So utter chaos ensues. Men abdicate their responsibility to establish laws, order, peace, justice and loving guidance for their own homes and society, in strength and virtue, as priests of God and as faithful stewards benefiting all God’s people and creations. And, since women have no structure to build upon, nor any time to do their critical works in their homes, churches and communities, they pursue an empty, amoral and thoroughly futile existence, as though this were a virtue, even as they are exploited by the most worldly and loveless men, even by psychopaths. Then many souls, those born with genetic weaknesses that make them prone to subtle influences, become warped through the total obsession with the flesh, through a total absence of anything to feed the spirit. So they soon become sexual exploiters, sexually exploited, homosexuals, lesbians, flesh totally addicted to some kind of sexual gratification. And it is impossible for them to stop, even though this delusion destroys their flesh. Some have convinced themselves that they are “biologically oriented” to their particular kinds of sexual lusts of the flesh, then define their whole existence by these lusts, while ignoring and suppressing all the true science and millenniums of experiences which prove there is no “biological orientation,” which also prove the harmful effects or “wages” of their sins. “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Rom. 1:24-25, ESV). Their humanism, their lust to be their own gods, transforms them into self-destructive fools. But they stubbornly cling to their lie.
Spirits no longer seek Christ’s help to free their minds of flesh from these foolish, self-destructive addictions because their flesh wants to believe lies. They refuse to be freed from their slavery to sin. So all become cold and fragmented. Without a strong family, church and community, the land soon becomes vulnerable to every whim of the devil. All are like sheep shepherded by wolves, divided so they will remain an easy prey for their exploiters, to feed the children of Satan. Psychopaths divide and conquer them, so they can be readily herded into their slaughter houses as soon as the ravenous beasts grow hungry. Yet, in all this, they refuse to turn to God for the help of His power, wisdom and love, since they do not know the real God, since churches lie to them, because pastors tell them the humanistic lie that God wants everyone to be gods who pursue the rewards of Satan’s world order.
In reality, it is the work of fake churches that has contributed the most to Satan, and gave Satan the power to make most souls into his enslaved, abused, crushed and easily slaughtered prey. The people become willing victims, dutifully working their own destruction, primarily because false churches teach a false theology, a humanistic lie. Their lies close and bar the only door leading out of Satan’s prison. And to maintain their lies, false preachers and secular leaders give contradicting information to the people, which is just another form of a lie. That is, they develop specialized terms that are very seldom clearly defined, but sound professional and trustworthy. Then they ensure that all their words and deeds contradict what they claim to be the truth. They do this deliberately, in a way designed to cause confusion and obfuscation. For, if the people are so bewildered that they no longer know why their preachers or secular leaders say what they say, or do what they do, the people start to think of themselves as being too stupid to understand those “great” gods. Then the people begin to think it is best to let those preachers and secular leaders make all the important decisions for them, since those “experts” appear to be gods that are so much wiser than them. So this lie gives them the power to lie.
Well, it is true that all people are actually stupid. But their “experts” and gods, who claim to know what is right and true, or what is wrong and false, are the most stupid of all, since they work hard to become more enslaved by Satan, who dangles a few meaningless trinkets of his world order in front of their big noses, ju