Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Sin We’re All Pretty Good at Hiding | The Gospels | Matthew 5:33–37

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

What counts as a lie? Why does God care so much about something we often consider a “respectable sin”? And what if God’s commands aren’t meant to restrict us, but protect us? In Matthew 5:33��37, Jesus exposes the deeper heart of dishonesty and calls us to a life marked by truthfulness, integrity, and consistency. Want to become a more consistent Bible reader? Download our free Ten Minute Bible Guide and start building a simple, sustainable habit of meeting with God through his word. Grab your guide here. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now.Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Matthew 5:33–37

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Everyone thinks lying is wrong, and yet we all do it. Today we're going to consider the ways we lie and how big of a deal lying is to God. We're in the Sermon of the Mount. It's one of the most famous passages in all the Bible. You read the Sermon of the Mount from Matthew 5 through Matthew 7. much of the Sermont in the Mount is in red letters, meaning this is an extended portion of Jesus's most important teaching on how to live the Christian life. So we're in that part of the Sermon

on the Mount when Jesus is explaining the Old Testament commandments and how they don't just deal with our behavior, but also our heart. In this section so far, we've seen Jesus address issues of murder and anger, adultery, lust, and divorce. Today, we're going to talk about lying. Before we dive into the passage, I just want you to think a moment about God's law. I don't know if we have the right perspective on God's commands. It's almost like we think of God's law is a bummer. Like it keeps us from enjoying life, that the law is the hard part of being a Christian. But I think that's exactly wrong. Dorothy Sayers was an author who was also a good friend of C.S. Lewis. And she was attempting to explain the moral law of God. And she pointed out that in our society, there are kind of two kinds of

laws. There's the law of the stop sign, and then there's the law of the fire. The law of the stop sign is a law that says the traffic is heavy on a certain street, and as a result, the police department or the city council or whoever decides to erect a stop sign. They also decide that if you run that stop sign, it will cost you $25 or $35. If the traffic changes, they can up the fine. If too many people are running the stop sign, they can make the fine $50 or $75. Or if they build a highway around the city, they can take the stop sign down or reduce the penalty. The police department or city council controls the law of the stop sign. It's arbitrary. It's flexible. The punishment or the financial penalty is made by people, and they can change the punishment. But then Dorothy Sayers said, there's also

the law of the fire. And the law of the fire says that if you put your hand in a fire, you'll get burned. Now imagine that all the legislatures of all the nations in the entire world gathered in one great assembly and that they voted unanimously, they hear on out that fire would no longer burn. The first person who left the assembly and put their hand in the fire would discover that the law of the fire is very, very different than the law of the stop sign. Because the penalty for breaking the law of the fire is wrapped up in the fire itself. Like the moral law of God is the law of the fire. You never break God's laws. You just break yourself on them.

The penalty can't be reduced because the penalty. penalty for breaking the law is bound up in the law itself. So if you worship other things than God, you'll become enslaved by them. If you break the principle of Sabbath rest, you will burn out. If you have sex outside of God's plan for marriage, you will reap the painful, emotional, and physical consequences. If you covet, your soul will be left empty. God's commands are not intended to steal our joy as if God comes up with an arbitrary punishment to keep us from having too much fun. God's commands are for our good and for our protection. We don't always like God's laws, but following them leads to true life. All right. So now let's think about what Jesus says

about lying. Let me read the passage. It's in Matthew 5 beginning in verse 33. Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made. But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is God's throne, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Lying is a sin that is so accepted that it falls into the category of respectable sins, sins that we've made peace with, sins that don't scandalize us. But understand that while we might be

okay with lying. God isn't. We might not think lying is a big deal, but God does. Jesus doesn't directly quote the Old Testament in this passage. Instead, he summarizes that the Old Testament commands teach us to tell the truth, and then Jesus critiques how people tried to get out of telling the truth. So in the Ten Commandments, God commanded us to not bear false witness. He commanded us to tell the truth, but religious leaders had developed a complex system of oath in which some oaths had to be honored, and some didn't. Jehovah witnesses think that Jesus is teaching that we can't take public oaths, like saying the Pledge of Allegiance or being sworn into a government office or military service. But that's not Jesus's point. I know that because Jesus swears under oath.

He did it himself in Matthew 26 when he was standing before the high priest. And then in Galatians 1 and 1st Corinthians 1, Paul makes oaths. So if that's not Jesus's point, what point is he making? Well, if you know people are watching you, it changes your behavior. If you were being watched, you might not litter, or you might change the channel on what you were watching on what you were watching, or if you knew someone was watching, you might get out of the app you're in on your phone, or if you knew people were watching, you might pick up your dog poop, or you might not pick your nose.

Because these are all things that you might do privately, but you wouldn't do if you knew someone was watching you. But you're always in God's presence. That's why you should always tell the truth. That's why you should let your yes be yes and your no beat no, because all of life is lived in the presence of God. So to be truthful means to keep our promises. It means to be consistent. It means to do what you say you'll do. Now, our culture minimizes those promises. It says don't get married, just live together. Don't join a church, just attend. Our culture

tells us to do what feels best for us. But when you make a promise, you can commit yourself to something bigger and better than your immediate desires. Like when you take your marriage vows, those aren't for that moment that day. Everyone knows that the bride and groom love each other and want to spend time together. The vows are not made for the moment. The vows are made because you don't know what the future holds. The vows are promises for after the wedding day. See, I don't need to make a promise to be with my wife today.

I mean, that's the whole reason we got married. Vows are for the future. They bind you to each other when things don't go well, when the feelings aren't there, when life is hard. I'm going to stick with this person. That's what I'm promising. I'm going to work through things. So even though on one level, we can say that everyone lies, most of us don't think of ourselves as liars. That's because we've figured out how to rationalize so that we can fudge the truth without forfeiting our self-image as good, honest people. But there is a There are so many different ways to lie. You can lie on social media, what you say or don't say about yourself. You can lie about your appearance by altering photographs. You can lie on online dating sites. The University of Wisconsin and Cornell University did a study in which they found that 80% of people on dating apps lie about their height, their weight, their age. They lie about something. You can lie to yourself. You can tell yourself a story to make you feel better. In other words, you can shift the blame away from yourself and to someone else. You can lie by twisting words. This is called politics. There are some professions, and I think politics is one of them, where lying has become normalized. You can lie when you cheat in school or in business. You can lie by adding to billable hours or by adding to your expense reports. People lie on their insurance claims. They don't. usually fake a robbery and say something was stolen that wasn't, but if they have a fire or a theft,

they tend to exaggerate their loss. Like a 32-inch TV becomes a 40-inch TV, an 18-carat gold necklace becomes a 22-carat gold necklace. You could lie on your taxes. You can lie on your resume. Now, does lying matter? Is it a big deal? Well, Jesus said in Matthew 537, all you need to say is simply guess or no, anything beyond that comes from the evil one. So he's telling us that lying comes from the devil, which makes sense because in John 844, we're told that the devil is the father of lies. You might remember the story of Ananias and Sapphire, who were members of the first church in Jerusalem. It was an exciting time to become a Christian. People were coming to faith. The church is growing. People were caring for one another. They were selling their possessions and giving their

money to the poor. There was a guy named Joseph who sold the field and he took that money and gave it to the church and he said, use this for ministry to people. Ananias and Safira watched all that. They watched how Joseph's reputation kind of grew and they wanted to make a big financial gift. So here's what it says in Acts 5. Now a man named Ananias together with his wife Safira also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself. But he brought the rest and put it before the Apostle's feet. I'm sure Ananias and Sapphire thought that no one would ever know that they said they gave all their money, but they really didn't. Now, here's the thing.

It was all their money. They could have sold their property and done whatever they wanted with the proceeds. They could have kept it all. They didn't have to sell it to begin with. They could do whatever they wanted to do. But what did Anonias do wrong is that he lied. He acted like he was giving all this money to God when he wasn't. somehow the apostle Peter becomes aware of this and Peter says to him Ananias how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land didn't it belong to you before it was sold and after it was sold wasn't the money at your disposal what makes you think of doing such a thing you've not lied just to human beings but to God so Ananias and Safira they lied they pretended to be something they weren't his lies

were told comes from Satan. Again, that makes sense because Satan is a liar. He told the first lie. Lying is demonic. And the sin of lying was against God. He was, well, I didn't lie to God. I lied to the church. No, you lied to God because God is the God of truth. And every lie told is a sin against him. And then Ananias and Safaris sin resulted in judgment. Acts 5.5, when Anonias heard this, he fell down and died. fear seized all who heard what happened. Why did this happen to them and not to everyone who lies? I mean, if God struck down every person who lied, we'd all be dead. Well, God struck down Anonias and Sifira as a preview of the judgment to come. The judgment at the end of time was brought in early into their life. They faced the judgment earlier as a warning to us. See, every liar

deserves to die. In Revelation 21, verse 8, it says, cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars. Did you catch that? All liars. They will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. There's only one person who never lied. That is Jesus. The prophet Isaiah said there was no deceit found in his mouth. Peter, the disciple who knew him well, he knew him for three years, said the same thing. He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. One human being in all of history, whose words in reality matched perfectly every single time. Jesus didn't just tell the truth. Jesus is the truth. He let

his yes be yes all the way to the cross. Amen. Hey, before we wrap up, can I tell you about something we've been working on here at 10 minute Bible talks? We believe that everyone should know how to read the Bible. But the truth is, a lot of us have never been shown how. That's why we created the 10-minute Bible Guide. It's a simple framework for helping you understand God's Word and build a sustainable Bible reading habit, not so that you can simply check the Bible reading box off your to-do list, but so that you can spend meaningful, life-giving time with God in His Word. Inside our guide, you'll find practical tips for getting started, strategies for how to stay consistent, ideas for how to apply the Bible to your life and how to pray through the Bible and even journal through it once you're done.

So if you've ever thought, I want to read my Bible, but I don't know how to start or how to stick with it, then this is for you. You can download our free 10-minute Bible guide today at 10-minute Bible Talks.com or just hit the link in our show notes.