For Yom Kippur this year, the Day of Atonement when the Temple would be cleansed from the sins of the people of Israel, I want to talk about invisible sins and how they mess everything up.
If you want to watch me recording a slightly longer version of this live on YouTube, check this out! If you can’t see the podcast player, click here.
Hi! I’m Miss Tyler, and welcome to this week’s episode of Context for Kids, where I teach you stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel, where I now post slightly longer video versions. (Parents, all Scripture this week comes from the MTV, the Miss Tyler Version, which is the Christian Standard Bible tweaked a bit to make it easier for kids to understand the content and the context without reading an entire chapter every week!)
Yom Kippur, which happens next week, is the holiest day of the year on the Biblical calendar that we find in Leviticus 23. It was the most complicated day at the Temple for the priests and especially for the High Priest because that was the only day of the year that he was allowed to go into the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was. The special sacrifices and rituals performed on that day cleaned all of Israel’s sin out of God’s Temple. If you think of our sins as like red dye in the laundry—a little bit might not really show up much, but a whole lot makes everything bright pink or maybe even red! That’s what Israel’s sins did to the Temple, as little by little the Temple got dirtier and dirtier with bad stuff getting nearer and nearer to God’s throne. If it didn’t get cleaned out once a year, then God would leave. Just think of a bag of garbage in your living room, and then another and another; the first bag has gotten really stinky the longer it sits there. And it isn’t just the smell but the germs and mold—before you know it, the curtains, furniture, and even your pillow smells terrible. The garbage needs to go. Of course, if you are only taking out the garbage once a year, there are going be terrible problems! But sin that stains God’s house was almost always invisible. Only God could see it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Right before God left His Temple forever in 586 BC, the sin wasn’t invisible anymore, and there were even terrible things carved into the walls, plus idols set up all over the place. They weren’t even trying to hide their sin anymore, and God had to leave.
Now, today, I want to talk about a sin that God hates, which sometimes seems invisible but is actually like that red dye in the white laundry. And do not try that at home. I will not be on your side if that happens. It would be really mean. This sin is one of the Ten Commandments, and it is the easiest sin of all to commit, I think. That sin is false witness—sometimes called lying even though lying can be a bit different. Lying to and about people ruins everything and everyone. Now, there are different kinds of lies, for sure. Let me tell you about a lie that I told a couple of weeks ago to protect my favorite cashier at my favorite place to shop.
My friend T works at my favorite store. She loves to wear sparkly clothes, and it is always fun to talk to her when there isn’t a line at the cash register. She is very friendly and helpful, but two weeks ago, she looked scared, and I had never seen her scared before. She whispered to me, “There is a man here at the store who won’t leave me alone. He knows where I live because he followed me home one day. He has been coming here more and more and is harassing me. The manager has been sending me into the back when he comes around, but she is in the bathroom right now, and I am up here on my own.”
Well, I was shocked! I had no idea this was going on, but I tell you that as soon as she went to the cash register and started checking me out, he showed up. He was a big guy. T is small—taller than me but a lot thinner. And so, I did something I try never to do. I started lying. I pretended to have some problems with my purchases and kept asking questions she had to answer. She understood what I was doing right away, and she played along until the manager came up front and made him check out at the front service desk. He was angry. He wanted to wait. But the manager made him go to the front desk. I talked to T the other day, and he has stopped coming in now that he knows everyone is protecting her, but you know what? That was really scary. And I lied. I didn’t tell a lie to hurt anyone, or to get myself out of trouble, or to get a friend off the hook for something they had done. I lied to protect someone from a guy who was bigger and stronger and wasn’t being respectful to her as a human being. Sometimes, lying is the right thing to do. If you have ever read or seen a movie about Corrie Ten Boom or Irena Sendler or any of the other people who protected people who were Jewish, special needs, black, or gypsies from the Nazis during World War II then you know they pretty much all lied to keep those people from being wrongly arrested and killed. Now, if we read one of the versions of the Ten Commandments where the commandment says, “You shall not lie,” then protecting those people or protecting my friend might look like a sin, but what does the Bible actually tell us that we can’t do?
In Exodus 20:16, in Hebrew (which is the language it was originally written in), we are commanded not to tell a lie that will hurt another person. Obviously, telling the Nazis that you aren’t hiding any Jews in your house isn’t going to hurt anyone, plus it will keep people from getting hurt and also protect the soldiers from sinning. Pretending to have questions so that T wouldn’t have to be alone with that scary guy also wasn’t hurting anyone. We have to always be wise and honest about what we are doing and why. It’s easy to do the wrong thing so that something good will happen to us and say that it’s okay, but the wrong thing is always the wrong thing. If your friend robs a bank and is hiding in your house, and the police come and ask if he is there, then lying isn’t the right thing to do because it isn’t for the right reason. He stole money from people and that means people got hurt, and the people in the bank were really scared. When someone does something like that, they aren’t being picked on–they need to be caught and stopped and punished. The Bible tells us not to steal right before it tells us not to hurt people with lies.
And people have always understood this. During the 1800’s here in America, brave men and women helped people who were enslaved to escape. They were called the Underground Railroad. They risked everything to protect the people who were escaping, and they lied to keep people from being captured and sent back down south again. Were they wrong? Of course not! Did you know there is a commandment in the Bible that says that if a slave runs away, you can’t send them back but you have to let them live with you! “Do not give a slave back to his master if he has escaped from his master and come to you. Let him live among you wherever he wants within your city gates. Do not hurt him in any way.” (Deut 23:15-16) Sounds like those Underground Railroad people knew the Bible a whole lot better than the people who thought it was okay to own other people!
In the Ten Commandments, the Hebrew version says that you will not tell lies that will hurt your neighbor. Jesus said that when we say something, whether we say yes or no, we need to mean what we say (Matt 5:37). In the Book of Revelation, people who lie are lumped in with murderers and idol worshipers and all sorts of terrible sins. But why are lies about people and lies that protect people who have done bad things so terrible? Well, it’s all about the difference between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of the Evil One—which is also called the Beast Kingdom. When I talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, I don’t want you to think of “going to Heaven” because that isn’t what Jesus was talking about. When Jesus came and began teaching, preaching, healing people, and working miracles, He said that the Kingdom of Heaven was already here on Earth. In fact, the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth began with a tiny mustard seed—a baby named Jesus who grew up to teach us how God wants us to live. And everything God wants us to do is the opposite of the things that the evil empires of the world want us to do. The world says, “take everything you can get, no matter who gets hurt, and do whatever you need to do to get what you want!” But God says, “Share what you have with the poor, and don’t hurt the people who are working for you or anyone else either. God will give you what you need even though you can’t always get what you want.”
The world around us doesn’t act like lying is a big deal, and you will watch movies and tv shows where people lie to each other all the time; then they all act like nothing happened. Real life isn’t like TV, and the things we do and don’t do hurt real people. When we lie to someone about something small and they don’t find out, we will probably tell a bigger lie next time. After a while, lying will be normal for us. But when someone finds out that we lied about one thing, they will begin to wonder if we have lied about everything! They will be hurt that we didn’t love them and tried to trick them. They will be angry and embarrassed—just like you would be if they did it to you. After a while, no one knows for sure when you are telling the truth and when you are lying. People can’t live in a world safely when they don’t know who they can trust. And especially when the person lying to you is a member of your family.
I grew up in a house with a terrible liar. He would lie about important things, and he would lie about ridiculously stupid things. He would tell lies if he wanted people to be impressed with him, and he would lie about people he didn’t like or if he just wanted to make them look bad. Lying never bothered him because he didn’t believe people deserved to be treated honestly and fairly. He only ever thought about himself and what he wanted and what he wanted people to think about himself and others, and so, for him, that meant it was okay to say whatever he wanted whenever he wanted for whatever reason he wanted. He was living as though he was the only real person in the whole world and that it was okay to hurt everyone else. It was hard growing up like that, and I learned to lie too—not as badly, but when I began to believe Jesus and accepted Him as my King and Savior, lying was one of the first things He dealt with. Oh man, I had to go back and apologize to people I had lied to and admit the truth. It wasn’t long before I wished I had never lied once in my entire life. And it is hard to just stop lying when you are used to doing it. I would just up and lie and catch myself and have to say, “I am sorry, that was a lie; that isn’t true.” The people in my life were glad they could start to trust me because whenever I lied, I would immediately have to admit it. God wasn’t putting up with my lies anymore; He was changing me from the inside out. But the person who taught me to lie? He is still a liar, and I don’t even think he knows it anymore. I think he fools himself into thinking that these wild lies of his are actually true or maybe that everyone else is just too foolish to realize exactly what he is doing. But we all know.
I wish God would stop him like He stopped me, but I am happy He dealt with me. Do you know anyone who tells a lot of lies? What do you think about them when you hear them lie? Are you angry, frustrated, or hurt? What do they do when they get caught lying? Do they admit it? Or do they just make up another lie? Do people trust them, or are they laughing at them behind their backs? Our lies hurt other people, but they also hurt us—lies make us look absolutely ridiculous. A liar makes a bad friend. A liar can’t be trusted with anything. When a liar says something that is true, they make what is true look like a lie! Liars make life messy, complicated, and even scary. And the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t messy or complicated or scary. Imagine living in a family where everyone lied and no one could be trusted—who would you even go to when you needed to know the truth?
The worst thing about lying is that if we lie a lot, when we tell people about Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven, who will want to believe us? I want you to think about it. It is already hard for most people to believe that God’s Son lived in a human body, did miracles, was killed in a terrible way, and then came back to life in a perfect body a few days later. Alright? Most people in the world think that’s nonsense. They don’t want a god who can be killed, even though Jesus died so that we could be new kinds of people and live like the Kingdom of Heaven is wherever we are. And I know it is true because God has changed me, and He talks to me and answers my prayers and I have seen miracles happen and I can feel Him with me. I have always known He was there since I was little, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with Him because I was so angry at Him. And there are a lot of angry and hurting people out there. They are tired of being hurt and lied to. They need love and they need truth and they need mercy and compassion and gentleness so that God can heal their hearts. And what they need most of all is for someone they can trust to tell them about Jesus. That means we have to live in ways that tell people we are different from everyone who has hurt them. They need to know we won’t lie about them or to them. They need to know that when they are with us that they can relax and know they are safe. But if we lie to them or about them or tell lies about other people or even about ourselves, then they will see that they can’t listen to us and believe what we say about the big things in life—like Jesus.
God hates lies because lies poison His Kingdom like sin stained His Temple and red dye stains the white laundry. God wants everyone on Earth to love and trust Him and to be able to love and trust one another. For that to happen, it has to start with us. That means we need to be truthful when it is hard and even when it is embarrassing because we have to admit we were wrong. It means that we can’t cover up the wrong things we do and hope no one will figure out it was us. And there are a lot of ways we can lie and especially on the internet. What if you post something with someone’s name on it because you think it is true, but a bunch of people tell you that it isn’t true, and they even give you proof? What does an honest person do? An honest person apologizes and makes sure everyone knows the truth, even though it is embarrassing. What does a liar do? A liar makes a bunch of excuses and just doesn’t care if they are lying about someone. Moses and Jesus both said that we are supposed to love our neighbors as if they were us—and anything that we would hate we absolutely can’t do to anyone else. And our neighbors are everyone, not just the people next door that we like.
I know what it is like to have someone lie about me and never take it back. It makes me angry, scared, and embarrassed (even if I didn’t do anything wrong). Everyone hates that. No one likes to be lied about because you usually can’t even prove that a lie is a lie. How can you prove that you didn’t do something that no one was around to see???? Even if you say you didn’t do it, there are always people who will believe the lies. That’s a terrible thing to do to someone else. But I see it all the time from people who say they love God and Jesus and the Bible. They spread lies, but they believe they are still good people. That’s because when we lie, our brains change, and we begin to believe our own lies. That’s why it took God a long time to get me to stop lying. But let me tell you that there is no quicker cure than God poking at you to admit your lies right after you tell them! It makes you not want to lie at all!
God and His Kingdom have to be about what is true and good because Jesus is true and good. Jesus didn’t go around lying about anyone and not even to or about the people who wanted to kill Him. Jesus could have saved His own life if He was willing to lie. He could have lied about what He said and what He did. He could have made up nasty stories about people. He could have lied about who He was and what He was doing! If anyone in the world ever had a good reason to lie, it is Jesus, but He didn’t. He told the truth, and so the leaders of the Jews and Romans had Him killed. People lied about Jesus, but He didn’t lie about them. If Jesus had lied, no one would believe the stories about all the amazing things He said and did. If His followers were liars, then no one would believe them either. Peter lied when he was scared; he said three times that he didn’t know who Jesus was after He was arrested. I sometimes wonder if he ever lied again—but when Peter told his story to Mark, he made sure to include the fact that he had lied about being a disciple of Jesus. Lying isn’t the end of the world; we can always start telling the truth and no matter how many people we have to tell about our lies, no one in the world is a better-known liar than Peter! But Peter became a truth-teller with God’s help. We all can.
Why do people lie? I mean, apart from the people who only lie to protect innocent people from those who want to hurt them for no reason. Sometimes, people want to be respected and look good when they haven’t earned it, and the only way they can do that is to lie about themselves and what they really have done and not done. I once watched a movie about a man who was a con artist—which means that he spent his life fooling people about who he was and what he was doing. He pretended to be an airline pilot even though he couldn’t fly a plane, a doctor even though he hadn’t gone to medical school, and a whole lot of other things. Con artists make money by stealing it—not from a bank but by fooling people into believing what they are saying. They are professional liars.
Other people lie to keep themselves out of trouble for the wrong things they do. Sometimes, they will even let an innocent person go to jail instead. It was just a little while ago that someone was proved innocent of a crime they hadn’t committed almost fifty years ago. They went to jail for seven years for it. I couldn’t imagine allowing someone else to go to jail for something I did wrong, but a liar can always come up with a reason why it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, people will lie about folks they don’t like. I always say that if you have to lie about a person you hate, then maybe you don’t have any real reason to hate them because the truth should be enough!
What I see most often—because most people aren’t criminals or con artists—is when people really want something to be true or to get others to believe that something is true. Sometimes, they are willing to tell lies (no matter how terrible or unbelievable) to manipulate other people into being on their side. Manipulation is an ugly word—it means that someone is tricking you into doing or believing something that you probably wouldn’t do or believe if they told you the truth. People can even have good intentions—maybe they really want to stop something they believe is evil—but to try to stop it, they lie about it and make it worse than it is. And they will say terrible things about the people who disagree with them. They stop caring about what is true and what is a lie because of what they want to believe, and they might think that a lie is a good way of telling the truth. But God never tells us to do that.
What if I wanted everyone in the world to stop stealing? Maybe I could make up a story to tell children that if they steal something, their hands will rot and fall off. Should people take things that belong to someone else? Of course not! But should I tell such a terrible lie to try and get people to stop? Absolutely not! At some point, the kids are going to find out it isn’t true, and then they won’t believe anything I tell them ever again. That would be a seriously big lie, and a really stupid one because it wouldn’t take long to prove me wrong.
Sometimes, people are embarrassed and so they lie to make themselves look better. When I was twelve years old, one of the little children I was babysitting died in a terrible way. But his mother lied to me about what happened. The lie she told me made me terrified of being in a car for a very long time, and I still think about the lies she told me every time I buckle my seatbelt over forty years later. Her son had died because they had made some terrible decisions, and everyone knew it, but I suppose she wanted me to think it wasn’t her fault. So, we have to be careful because our lies can hurt us, other people, and also the Kingdom of Heaven.
I love you. I am praying for you. And that’s no lie.