WHO’S THE FOOL?

Proverbs 6:16-19 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: (17) A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, (18) An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, (19) A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

The wise king now lists the things that God hates. Today we are appalled by random murder, sexual perversions and generally ungodly lifestyles. Most of us are not guilty of these things, but what we find on this list is a litany of attitudes that we tolerate in our lives whether at home, in the work place or in Church. Let us now elaborate on each of them.

A lying tongue:: that is the second of the hateful things; a tongue speaking falsehood, knowingly and willingly, with an intention to deceive others; to hurt the character of a neighbor, or to flatter a friend, is a most detestable evil; it ought to be so to men, it must be so to God, who is a God of truth: nor is there anything in which a man more resembles the devil, who is the father of lies; Courtesy of John Gill’s Exposition of the Whole Bible

Yet, do we even need a tongue to lie? When Judah, Jacob’s son, presented Joseph’s bloody to his father, he only said, ‘discern these’. He did not say a thing about what happened to his brother Joseph. Jacob drew his own conclusions.

Do we not also lie by pretending to appear to be something we are not? Do we not do so constantly in our social relationships? Do we not dress, act and wear make up in a manner projecting what we wish we were and not what we actually are? Do we not do so because secretly we feel uncomfortable we what God made us, and wish we were more something, or even someone else?

There is such a freedom in the truth. We do have to, like Judah and his brothers, carry the burden of a lie for decades in dread of the moment when God will demand accounts. We can be just who and what we are and do not have to play the game of appearances. Moses himself admitted to God his own feeling of inadequacy. God acknowledged it and gave him Aaron his brother to speak for him to pharaoh.

The worse of it is that, either we are in a crowd that plays the same game and everybody knows that everybody knows and goes along with it because they like it, or that we are with people who can see right through us and we make fools of ourselves. The truth of the matter is that we can fool some of the people all the time; or we can fool all the people some times; but we can never fool all the people all the time; and we can certainly never fool God.