This may be the most important question for our times, “Can a lie be taken as communication?” 

This was the core query that was wrestled within the 1970 book by German philosopher, Josef Pieper, “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power.” The book discussed how this question has always plagued human understanding. Are people using language to actually “convey reality for the good of the other”, or are people using language to “manipulate, control, and gain an advantage for selfish reasons”? If it is for the latter, then Pieper believes true communication is not actually taking place. Lies, therefore, cannot, and must not be taken as true communication. 

Think on that for a second. If that is true, most everything we see on the news, discussed on social media, even our conversations between friends, is more non-communication than actual communication. And this obsession with living in a false reality is spilling over into even the stories we believe and the art we consume. C. S. Lewis once said, “art has always involved communication and not merely expression.” But something has happened, art has become more about expression than enhancing and trying to help understand the world we live in. We care more about our right to vent and express ourselves than transferring meaning and blessing to others. I believe this makes for both bad art and the downgrading of culture.

I have been reading the Book of John in my devotional studies and at the beginning of the amazing Gospel narrative there enters a character into the world of mankind like no other, in fact, he jumps off the page. His name is John the Baptist. No one has ever been like him, dressed in camel hair and living off of a diet of locusts and wild honey. But one of the main reasons he is so unique is because his words have real weight. When he speaks, people listen. And they listen because his communication is pure and unadulterated truth, “I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” (John 1:24)

John was sent for the express purpose of causing “all men to believe” (John 1:7), so his words were meant to be heavy. Not only was John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit of God, but he spoke only what he knew to be the true-truth. True-truths are words that carry bold confidence that what is being said corresponds to what actually is the case, they match with the world God made. He speaks what is.

We live in a day and age when people think they can create what is. Reality has become fluid, and they somehow believe it is their right to dream up, out of whole cloth, what can be. The godlike power of creation is now given to fallen man, we have not only have stolen Prometheus’ fire but we also have Jehovah’s ability to speak life into existence. And with our new godlike abilities, we believe the general populace must conform to the world as we imagine it to be. It is like a child actually believing because they wear a cape and don a mask of Batman, they become the real Batman. It is cute for kids, but for adults who believe their own illusions of a self-created reality, it becomes quite sad and silly.

When a person speaks in such a way where there will always be a lightness to their words — thin and feeble. Jeremiah the prophet calls this kind of speaking as “worthless words”:

“If you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you,
but you must not turn to them.
I will make you a wall to this people.”
(Jeremiah 15:19)

And when a person uses worthless words, the listener has no reason to be compelled. The heart will not be moved. Communication has not really taken place. And even on a subconscious level, the listener knows they are being lied to. They may smile and nod, but the words they heard will vanish as quickly as a morning mist.

When people speak like this, we need not fear their words. Isaiah compares this kind of communication to spinning clothes out of spider webs:

“Your lips have spoken falsely,
and your tongue mutters wicked things.
No one calls for justice;
no one pleads a case with integrity.
They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies;
they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
They hatch the eggs of vipers
and spin a spider’s web.”
(Isaiah 59:3-5)

Spider webs make for bad clothes. Try to wear a dress spun only of spider webs, it doesn’t cover which makes for useless clothing. And so are worthless words. No one will be moved by them. True words, however, land hard, like a direct punch in the face. Sometimes true-truth will hurt, but other times it will awaken. Either way, people are moved.

John the Baptist was duty-bound to be a faithful agent of God the Father. His job was to be honest. And those who heard him knew it. A single man prepared the world for Christ because he had the courage to speak what really is.

What happens to people when they are listening to a person they are certain are speaking true-truth? They will be forced to make a choice. The phrase that I think best describes the reaction from hearing truth is, “there will be more.” Those who love God will rejoice when they hear truth (more joy), and those who hate God will bristle with anger and chafe with frustration (more disgust). 

So those who are trying to be real communicators — whether it be a speaker, journalist, teacher, writer, singer, or a painter — have a difficult choice: Do I aim to tickle ears or to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Uttering worthy words is one of the hardest tasks ever given to us by God. Speculation and sophistry, sounding smart without saying a thing, is easy. Tickling ears is like handing out candy to children, when you say what people want to hear you will be liked. But it also tries to create a reality that does not exist.

Take for instance this “age of activism.” People are ramming ahead with words that claim to create a world of equity and are even guaranteeing freedom without responsibility. In the wake of this movement, there is, as David Wells once coined, “no place for truth.” Reality as it “really is” is being ignored and true communication has been thrown away replaced with spider webs.

When people don’t live in the truth they will suffer:

(1) Physical Suffering: Humans are both body and spirit. When we deny our actual design and turn the human body into a lump of silly putty that can be experimented on, we end up creating monstrosities. We are no longer allowed to tell five-year-old boys that dressing as drag queens is demented. 6’4” men who want to pretend they are women so they can compete in sports are ignoring everything that was once obvious to sane humans. Now those who dress up in spider webs expect us to be impressed. But if you look closely, these silky-smooth new garments add no more coverage than the Emperor’s new clothes.

(2) Emotional Suffering: People know they are lying to themselves, and much of their mental activity is spent on self-convincing. Believing your own lies is hard work. That is why there is so much need for people to look for “support groups” and “allies” who will join in their fight for the unreal to be accepted and affirmed as real. We want our selfish delusions to be treated seriously, and so we demand for people to join us in the fight for our ideas to be accepted as truth. We gather an army of illusion supporters, but hidden in the background of each psyche, is this sneaking suspicion that we are all living a lie. No wonder people are so frustrated with those who speak truth.

(3) Spiritual Suffering: The two big indicators of not living in true-truth — guilt and shame — like dry rot, are eating away at our collective souls. We know we are not being honest before God, the true creator, as he searches our souls to see if there is any ”wicked way in me.” Those who keep pushing the lies must push God out to keep the lies. We can’t let guilt and shame spoil the party. But the heart of the person dressed in spider webs still experiences conviction and so they shake a fist at God and say, “Stop looking at me, and let me play my game by my rules and do not interfere!” Anger, hostility, rage, violence, a yearning for power, spews from the mouths of those who hate having their lies exposed.

Spider webbed clothing just doesn’t cover, it leaves you naked and cold. Lonely are those who try to live in the un-reality of their own lies. And when exposed the person dressed in spider webs can’t admit their falseness, humility is abhorred. So instead they rage, they will do anything not to have their lies exposed.

To continue in their illusion they have only one goal, to shout down the truth-teller as the real liar. They will claim “hurt“, and exposure from the scorching hot sunlight of truth is now spun as “being judged”, or “marginalized.” They claim the high ground of victim status. But if you look closely, this is a self-inflicted malady. A common way to say it, these people are those who are looking to be offended. And when true-truth pops the bubble of their illusion, acute suffering occurs and the truth-teller must pay.

How then shall we communicate? Stop lying. And stop allowing lies to be considered true-truth. And then tell the truth…

• Tell the truth in everyday conversation.
• Tell the truth in stories. Truth can still be told in the form of myth, fairy tale, and fiction by using those stories as vehicles to display the truth that really exists in our world. True art blesses and beautifies, it is not just about venting. This is another discussion for another time.
• Tell the truth in politics. Compassion is a wonderful thing, but when it is unhinged from life as it really is, and utopia is believed to be achieved, it does untold harm.
• Tell the truth in your relationships.

Just tell the truth, and stop dressing in spider webs.