The lie is the death of man, his temporal and his eternal death. The lie kills nations. Through their lies, the most powerful empires of the world were laid waste. History knows of no more unsettling spectacle than the judgment which comes to pass when the men of an advanced culture have rejected the truth, and are now swallowed up in a sea of lies. As was the case with fading pagan antiquity, where this happened, religion and law, poetry and philosophy, life in marriage and family, in the state and society, in short, one sphere of life after another, fell sacrifice to the power and curse of the lie.
Where man can no longer bear the truth, he cannot live without the lie. Where man, even when dying, lies to himself and others, the terrible dissolution of his culture is held up as a glorious ascent, and decline is viewed as an advance, the like of which has never been experienced. If, according to the irrefutable testimony of history, this is the judgment of God on the lie, should God then not also punish the lie in His church? Truly He who is the Judge of all the world will do this! For the power of the lie extends even into the church. Since the days of the apostles there has been lying in the church as in the rest of the world. For people in the church too are and remain poor sinners until their death. (“Union and Confession,” The Lonely Way [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002], 1:265)
Those are powerful words. They are universally applicable. Recall the warning of Jesus that the devil “is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).
What is an example of a lie that “kills nations”? (Here is one: Marx’s socio-economic theory.)
Can you think of cases “when religion and law, poetry and philosophy, life in marriage and family, in the state and society, in short, one sphere of life after another, fell sacrifice to the power and curse of the lie”? (Here is one: Look at what the notion that “there is no meaning in life” did to the arts.)
How about Sasse’s point that when man lies to himself, “the terrible dissolution of his culture is held up as a glorious ascent, and decline is viewed as an advance.” (Here is a big one: Progressivism.)
What lies ruin our lives on a personal level?
What lies have infiltrated the church?
Apply Sasse’s quote particularly to today.
Illustration by Thomas Guest via Flickr, CC 2.0
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