Chapter
12.8
Lies, Truth
& Spin
Spin Doctors – Fake News – Fact Suppression
Sin of Omission – Alternate Facts– Manipulate
Deflect – Dodge – Distort – Evade - Mislead
The
wrath of God is against those who SUPPRESS & SPIN the truth. It’s in the Book
First Word
I can remember cleaning up
drink containers left on the water fountains at work. I would slip open the ladies rest room door
and chunk them into the large trash can just inside the door. When I was asked did I throw drinks into the
trash can in the ladies room, I calmly stated, “I promised you, I have never even set foot in
the ladies rest room”. Well what
I said was true, but it was a DODGE; I had side
stepped the original question and given the question a SPIN.
They were selling some old records on TV that they
had dubbed onto the modern CD;
they used the words “re-mastered” which sounded a lot better than “duplicated”
and they said with ALTERNATE FACTS that it
contained the NOSTALGIC sounds
of the era, meaning the static and scratches that the records contained; but re-mastered and
nostalgic sounded a lot better than duplicated and noisy.
Abraham’s wife Sarah also happened to
be his half-sister. She was beautiful to
behold and when King Abimelech saw
her; Abraham thought that the king would kill him to get Sarah. Abraham omitted telling the King that she was
his WIFE and only told him that she was his SISTER.[1] What he said was not a lie, but with ALTERNATE FACTS and omitting other facts;
he had injected SPIN.
King Herod spoke with some Wise Men about the birth of a new
king. He was TROUBLED[2] that this new baby
king would take his place and wanted to kill him,[3]
but MISLEADING the Wise Men
with a little SPIN,
he told them to find this new king and tell him where he was so he too could
come and worship him too.[4]
An Old Prophet was given an
assignment by God and was told not to eat or drink anything in that place, but
another man claiming to also be a prophet gave him some FAKE NEWS; that God said it was OK to eat and
drink.[5] This was about obedience; the old prophet did
eat and it cost him his life.
In the mouth of AT LEAST two witnesses is a thing established.[6]
There are many
bold lies recorded in scripture and because we don’t take the time to get a SECOND WITNESS and more
information, we act on the SPIN to our own determent.
Spin
is the opposite of Truth, spin is not a direction in itself; it just
points you in a direction and IN THE
ABSENCE OF INFORMATION, the SPIN WINS because
folks will not take the time to analyze what the spin actually means. Spin is an Art to select and omit facts; it is what we call, LYING BY OMISSION.
Spin Doctors are those who live by “poles” and are paid
to sample the direction of public opinion and come up with ideas on how to bend
the facts to make ANYTHING sound appealing. Truth and principal would just be a
coincidence; like instead of saying “ABORTION” they call it Pro-Choice which certainly sounds a lot better than saying PRO-MURDER.
When we think of SPIN,
we think of Politicians GUTTING the truth out of government and the Fake News Media
SUPPRESSING truth, but
scripture says NONE OF US ARE RIGHTEOUS, not even one,
and goes on further to say that our tongues have the venom of snakes. By our very own nature we are “coiled up”
and ready to spring on other’s failings in order to draw attention away from
our own. Then we spin
and stretch our own short comings in order to
put them in the very best possible light. We are all spin
doctors; we deflect, dodge,
evade, distort, mislead, manipulate, and suppress, in order to
reduce the full impact of the Truth.
We are embracing and putting forth
something that is not actually a lie, it’s just what we call “ALTERNATE FACTS”; a different opinion and version of the truth.
Truth
Information
from the News Media is for the common good of everyone, based on freedom,
justice and TRUTH. Journalist have an obligation to serve up the TRUTH and nothing can
justify systematically falsifying the TRUTH to exercise a political position through DISINFORMATION for the purpose of manipulating public opinion.[7]
Making public
statements that are not true that injure a person’s reputation, is called being
a “FALSE WITNESS”; in a court of
law it would be called “PERJUIRY”. It’s even one of the Ten Commandments; “You shall not be a
False Witness”.[8]
Truth is a matter of the Heart long before it
becomes a matter of the mind, so what we need is, to be re-born with a new
heart that contains a new way of thinking.[9] Since God is Truth, then we as Christian are
called to live in Truth. If we say we
have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, WE
LIE and
do not practice the truth.[10] From
God’s point of view, suppressing the truth is ungodliness
and unrighteousness and will bring on His wrath
from heaven. [11]
Therefore the FLIP SIDE of holding up
truth is reckoned as Godliness and Righteousness. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.[12] It’s in the Book
How
did we get here?
We
have put God’s word on the back seat, if not in the trunk. Slowly but surely we have come to look to “The Herd”
if not to ourselves for truth. Cancer
kills people, Doctors kill cancer; a bug sees a spider web as death, but the
spider sees it as life; so we have come to see TRUTH only as a
matter of perspective; Truth is in the
eye of the beholder.
Everyone who twists, distorts, spins, manipulates,
suppresses and evades TRUTH,
hates the light and will not come to the light, because what he is doing will
be exposed, thus pushing him further into the darkness. They are not only mentally
deficient, but morally
deficient.
God has made
Himself clearly perceived to us since the beginning of creation,[13]
but we have become futile in our thinking and have chosen to not honor Him nor
even give thanks to Him and now our foolish hearts have become darkened. We don’t see fit to acknowledge God and thus
have exchanged, modified, distorted and suppressed
His truth for a lie.[14] For this reason God gave us up to a debased
mind.
Lying is the work of Satan; our father is
Satan, and our will is to do the desires of our father.[15]
He was a murderer from the beginning,
and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own
character, for he is a liar and the father of lies and that’s why it is
SO
EASY
for us to lie.
We are to put on the new self,[16]
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, bearing the
very stamp of His nature. WE MUST BE BORN AGAIN. It’s in the Book
Side
Bar
We are not bound to reveal truth to someone who
does not have the right to know it. [17]
Confidential information given under the seal of secrecy must be kept
confidential unless it would cause very grave harm to come to the one who has
confided it or where by divulging it; grave harm can be avoided to a third
party.
The Take Away
Interestingly, we have a law
that prohibits you from lying under oath; does that mean it’s OK
to lie the rest of the time? In real
life, we have come to expect people to spin,
exaggerate, stretch and bend the truth especially
in SELF-PRESERVATION.
Scripture
records that leaders who looked to themselves for truth,
instructed the seers to “See no
more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of WHAT IS RIGHT![18] Tell us pleasant things, prophesy ILLUSIONS.
TRUTH
HAS FALLEN IN THE STREETS.[19] The psalmist
asked the question; who will dwell with God on His Holy Mountain?
God says “THE ONE WHO SPEAKS THE
TRUTH”.[20]
We live in a culture of half-truths, spins and misinformation where truth has little value. We can pick the flavor of truth we want to
hear forgetting that God’s Truth is supreme.
The Book says to choose a GOOD
REPUTATION;[21]
being held in HIGH ESTEEM over
becoming wealthy. Today, honesty,
humility and patience are
just not the characteristics of someone climbing the ladder of success in the
business world or in the political arena.
God sets a high
bar for us to follow, TRUTH is His “sign post;” He cannot Lie.[22] From a little child to the leaders of our
nation, we are born to walk in the darkness of LIES and
our Father is Satan;
therefore
WE MUST BE
BORN AGAIN.[23] LIES,
SPIN OR TRUTH
It’s in the Book
[2] Matthew 2:3 – King Herod was troubled
[3] Matthew 2:13 – Herod wanted to destroy the baby
Jesus
[4] Matthew 2:7-8 – King Herod with A little SPIN said; tell me where He
is so that I too may worship Him
[5] 1 Kings 13:18-24 – Obedience; don’t eat or drink, but was deceived
because he did not consult with God.
[6] Deuteronomy 19:15 – We are to verify information with a second opinion
[7] John 3:18-20 – Those who spin the Truth
hate the Light -- Romans 3:13 - Their
tongue is like snake venom
[8] Exodus 20:16 – You must not be a False Witness
-- Proverbs 19:9 - A False Witness will not go
unpunished
[9] Romans 3:10 - None are righteous, no, NOT ONE
[10] 1 John 1:6 – If we walk in darkness, we do not practice Truth
[11] Romans 1:18 – The wrath of God is against the SPIN; the SUPPRESSION OF
THE TRUTH.
[12] Matthew 5:37 – Either YES or NO, anything more is EVIL
[14] Romans 1:25-28 - We have exchanged the Truth for a Lie
[15] John 8:44 - Our father is Satan who is the father
of lies
[16] Ephesians 4:24 – We must PUT ON A
NEW SELF in righteousness
[17]
Proverbs 25:9-10 - Do
not reveal another’s secret
[18] Isaiah 30:10 – Give us NO MORE visions of what is RIGHT
[19] Isaiah 59:14 - TRUTH HAS FALLEN IN THE STREET
[20] Psalm 15:1-2 – The one who speaks truth will dwell with God
[21] Proverbs 22:1 – Choose a good reputation over being rich
[22] Titus 1:2 – God cannot lie
[23] John 3:7 – YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN
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