How Long Will You Lie?

Proverbs 6:6, 9 ESV

 

“Go to the ant, O sluggard;

    consider her ways, and be wise…

How long will you lie there, O sluggard?

    When will you arise from your sleep?”

 

There are many people professing faith in Jesus Christ who are physically and spiritually lazy. They go a lot by their feelings and they let their emotions rule what they do. They waste many hours on stuff that is pure junk or that is meaningless or that adds no value to their lives. Now, I am not against taking time to rest and to relax and to be unproductive for a period of time. We do need to rest our bodies. But this is about laziness.

 

This is about those who waste away their lives on stuff that has no value for eternity. They are walking according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit. They are following their emotions into sin time and time again and they are doing what makes them feel good even if it is wrong, and even if it means doing harm to others, and even if it means committing adultery against their spouses and then lying about it and then pretending all is good.

 

So, the counsel here is for the sluggard, for the lazy person who is living by his emotions and not walking by faith in Christ to consider his ways and be wise. Take stock in how you are spending your days and in what your mind is dwelling on and on what actions you are taking. Where are you headed with your life? What goals do you have? Do they align with God’s will and purpose for your life? And how long do you plan to stay where you are?

 

Proverbs 6:12-15 ESV

 

“A worthless person, a wicked man,

    goes about with crooked speech,

winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,

    points with his finger,

with perverted heart devises evil,

    continually sowing discord;

therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;

    in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.”

 

Sadly this describes many people these days. With the cheap grace gospel now permeating today’s church and being taught by people of renown who are highly respected in the Christian community, so that many people are just accepting what they are teaching without question, many professing Christians are living just like the ungodly who make no profession of faith in Christ, or worse. For there are non-Christians who have higher moral standards than a lot of people calling themselves Christians today.

 

Since they are being taught that if they believe (not defined) in Jesus that all their sins are forgiven (past, present, and future), and that now they have heaven guaranteed them when they die, regardless of how they live, many professing Christians are living in self-indulgence in deliberate and habitual sin while claiming God’s grace over their lives. So they continue on in sin without guilt doing what ought not to be done in secret and then they lie about what they are doing so that no one will know.

 

They are worthless in God’s sight because they are still living to the flesh and not to the Spirit, following their own course, doing whatever feels good to them, being spiritually lazy, feeling as though they don’t have to obey God and that they don’t have to forsake their sins, but while holding on to the belief that heaven is still secured them. But they are sinning deliberately and often premeditatedly against God and other humans while some of them are putting on a show of righteousness, but it is all fake.

 

Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV

 

“There are six things that the Lord hates,

    seven that are an abomination to him:

haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

    and hands that shed innocent blood,

a heart that devises wicked plans,

    feet that make haste to run to evil,

a false witness who breathes out lies,

    and one who sows discord among brothers.”

 

I agree! I hate those things, too. I hate lies worst of all, I think. I hate deception and manipulations and trickery and slander and betrayal. I would rather someone tell me the truth, even if the truth hurts, than to lie to me and to attempt to deceive me. I don’t like pretense. I don’t like fakery and hypocrisy. Now I don’t like people being hateful and yelling at me in hate, but even that is better than lying to me and being fake.

 

If you don’t like me, don’t pretend you do. If you don’t want to be with me don’t act like you do. I don’t need people to be with me if they don’t want to be with me. And God feels the same way. He doesn’t need us to go through the motions of having a quiet time with him each day while we habitually and deliberately are sinning against him. It isn’t like he doesn’t know. He knows everything. It doesn’t make him feel better if we spend 5 or 10 minutes a day going through the motions of having a quiet time with him if we have no intention of being faithful to him. So, cut out the lies!

 

Don’t be hypocritical. Be true to who you are and be honest. Admit what you are doing in secret. Admit what is going on inside your mind and in your heart and where you are. Don’t be a phony. No one benefits by you being a phony. You are just wasting other people’s time if you won’t be real and if all you are going to do is lie and put on a show. No one wants to see your show! God already knows, and people who know you well and who are discerning, they know, too. So don’t insult them by lying to them.

 

Proverbs 6:23-25, 32-33 ESV

 

“For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,

    and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,

to preserve you from the evil woman,

    from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

Do not desire her beauty in your heart,

    and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes…

 

“He who commits adultery lacks sense;

    he who does it destroys himself.

He will get wounds and dishonor,

    and his disgrace will not be wiped away.”

 

Many people professing faith in Christ today are living in spiritual adultery against God and they are living in adultery against their spouses. And adultery can be mainly acted out in the mind with no physical part to it at all. If you fantasize about being with someone other than with your spouse in a romantic and/or sexual way, that is adultery. And if you self-gratify in the process, that is also adultery, for you are having sex with yourself, so you are becoming one flesh with yourself and not with your spouse.

 

And if you are someone who views pornography or sexually charged or sexually suggestive or sensual videos and movies or TV shows, or who views still pictures with the same content, or who reads such material or who listens to music with such lyrics that stimulate one sexually, or which lead one to romanticize relationships with people with whom you are not married, all of that is adultery. You need to repent of these things and commit to being faithful to the Lord and to your spouse and to loving them both.

 

Turn from your sins and walk in obedience to the Lord. Commit to living a godly and a holy life to the praise and glory of God. Stop being a hypocrite and start being a person of integrity who tells the truth. Confess your sins to those you have sinned against and do so humbly and sincerely with an honest and sincere change of heart and mind and not with lying lips. And make yourself accountable to others who are walking in obedience to the Lord who will encourage you to walk in faithfulness to the Lord.

 

Only to Be What He Wants Me to Be

 

By Norman J. Clayton

 

Only to be what He wants me to be,

Every moment of every day,

Yielded completely to Jesus alone

Every step of this pilgrim way.

Just to be clay in the Potter's hands,

Ready to do what His will commands.

Only to be what He wants me to be,

Every moment of every day.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNjLJuYT7yk

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