Lying-even-in-small-things

********************************************************************* db: 5RH pt: Advent Review and Sabbath Herald dt: 04-13-97 at: Words to Parents [Concluded] pr: 9 ********************************************************************* Parents should set their children an example of strict truthfulness. They should never utter one word that is not true. They should train their children to respect Christians. Parents, do not allow your children to see that you take their word before the statements of older Christians. You cannot do them a greater injury. By saying, I believe my children before I believe those whom I have evidence are children of God, you encourage in them the habit of falsifying. Parents and teachers, be true to God. Let your life be free from deceitful practises. Let no guile be found in your lips. However disagreeable it may be to you at the time, let your ways, your words, and your works show uprightness in the sight of a holy God. O, the effect of the first lesson in deceit is terrible! Shall any who claim to be sons and daughters of God give themselves up to deceitful practises and lying? Never let your children have the semblance of an excuse for saying, Mother does not tell the truth. Father does not tell the truth. When you are tried in the heavenly courts, shall the record be made against your name, A deceiver? Shall your offspring be perverted by the example of those who ought to guide them in the way of truth? Instead of this, shall not the converting power of God enter the hearts of mothers and fathers? Shall not the Holy Spirit of God be allowed to make its mark upon their children? ********************************************************************* db: 9RH pt: Advent Review and Sabbath Herald dt: 02-02-11 at: A Warning Against Hypocrisy pr: 18 ********************************************************************* From the stern punishment meted out to Ananias and Sapphira, God would have us learn also how deep is his hatred and contempt for all hypocrisy and deception. In pretending that they had given all, Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, and as a result they lost this life and the life that is to come. The same God who punished them condemns all falsehood today. Lying lips are an abomination to him. He declares that into the holy city there shall in no wise enter "anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." Let truth-telling be held with no loose hand or uncertain grasp. Let it become a part of the life. Playing fast and loose with truth, and dissembling to suit one's own selfish plans, means a shipwreck of faith. "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." He who utters untruths sells his soul in a cheap market. His falsehoods may seem to serve in emergencies. He may seem to make business advancement because he gains by falsehood what he could not gain by fair dealing. But he finally reaches the place where he can trust no one. Himself a falsifier, he has no confidence in the word of others.

********************************************************************* db: 4OM ti: Other Manuscripts Volume Four cn: 224 ct: Ellen G. White Letters to Young Christians pr: 2 pg: 176 ********************************************************************* You ought to be my noble, truthful boy, a staff to your father, who is worn with care and constant labor, a comfort to your mother who has nursed you in sickness and cared for you in health. What can cause greater sorrow to parents with high principles and a keen sense of the beauty and importance of truth than to become convinced of the fact that their children are not truthful, that they have learned to deceive? . . . Thorns and briers have sprung up in my garden and choked the seed which I have tried to sow. You may say, "Dear me, Mother feels very keenly over trifles. I may not have been exactly truthful in little trifles." Trifles! Dear boy, there are no such things as trifles. Till truth itself is a trifle and valueless, no departure from it in any case can be called so. . . . You have so long cherished little habits of concealment (especially from your dear father), so long retreated from openness and candor, that you have become habitually secretive, even when there is often no inducement to be so. This makes you unsatisfactory, unstable, and insincere in character. Your habit of excusing and justifying yourself is often contrary to your conviction of truth. Every act of this kind is doing much toward forming your character. . . . Edson, in youth or early years we can trace the characteristics of riper years. The rank and noisome weeds of falsehood and deceit, which choke the precious plants of candor and truth, are sown in the springtime of youth. . . . After indulging in deception or concealing things from your parents, prevarication comes next; which is a mean, cowardly sort of lying. The path of truth is always safe, straight, and easy; that of deceit has so many windings and turnings that one deviation from uprightness and candor may lead to a thousand deceptions which were not anticipated at the first. A love for candor and truth is respected and loved by everyone not excepting those who place no estimate upon it for its own sake. Concealment, my dear boy, is [a] child of transgression. . . . ...... My dear Edson, you must render an account for the influence you exert. You have been blessed with good instruction and more is expected of you than of boys generally. I do not love to cause you pain, but I dare not withhold from you the light in which I view your case.--Letter 4, 1865, pp. 1-7. (To "My Dear Son Edson," June 20, 1865.) ********************************************************************* db: 4OT ti: Testimony For The Church, No. 4 pg: 71 pr: 1 ********************************************************************* Some fond mothers suffer wrongs in their children, which should not be suffered in them for a moment. The wrongs of the children are sometimes concealed from the father. Articles of dress or some indulgence is granted by the mother, with the understanding that the father is to know nothing about it; for he would reprove for these

things. Here is a lesson of deception effectually taught the children. Then if the father discovers these wrongs, vain excuses are made, and but half the truth told. The mother is not openhearted. She does not consider as she should that the father has the same interest in the children as herself, and that he should not be kept ignorant of their wrongs or besetments that ought to be corrected while young. Things have been covered. The children know the lack of union in their parents. It has its effect. The children begin young to deceive, cover up, tell things in a different light from what they are, to their mother, as well as their father. Exaggeration becomes habit. Blunt falsehoods are told with but little conviction or reproof of conscience. These wrongs commenced by the mother's concealing things from the father, who has a mutual interest in the character his children are forming. The father should have been consulted freely. All should have been laid open to him. But the opposite course taken to conceal and hide the wrongs of the children, encourages in them a disposition to deceive, a lack of truthfulness and honesty. The only hope of these children, whether they profess religion or not, is to be thoroughly converted. Their whole character must be changed. Thoughtless mother, do you know, as you teach your children, that their whole religious experience is affected by their teaching when young? Subdue them young; teach them to submit to you, and the more readily will they learn to yield obedience to the requirements of God. Encourage in your children a truthful, honest disposition. Let them never have occasion to doubt your sincerity and exact truthfulness. ********************************************************************* db: MB ti: Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing pg: 134 ct: Not Judging, but Doing pr: 3 cn: 6 ********************************************************************* In your association with others, put yourself in their place. Enter into their feelings, their difficulties, their disappointments, their joys, and their sorrows. Identify yourself with them, and then do to them as, were you to exchange places with them, you would wish them to deal with you. This is the true rule of honesty. It is another expression of the law. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Matthew 22:39. And it is the substance of the teaching of the prophets. It is a principle of heaven, and will be developed in all who are fitted for its holy companionship. ********NOTE: this is especially directed to the SDA publishing houses********** db: PC ti: The Paulson Collection of Ellen G. White Letters pr: 3 pg: 368 ********************************************************************* Let it not be necessary for God to send rebuke to men in responsible positions, who should be guardians of the people,

especially of the interests of those who have long served in the cause of God; whose pen and voice have been active in bringing up the work to its present proportions. I wish I could lay these matters before these men in their true light. Ever since the Publishing Association was formed, light has been given in cases of perplexity. The Lord has often spoken, laying down principles and rules which must be carried out by all the workers. The grave responsibilities resting upon those in positions of trust have been continually kept before us, and we have sought the Lord from three to five times a day to give us heavenly wisdom that we might sacredly guard the interests of the cause, and of his chosen people. I have been repeatedly shown that we must do this. It was shown me that those who preside over these institutions should ever bear in mind that there is a Chief Director, even the God of Heaven. There should be strict honesty in the business transactions in every department of the work. While there should be firmness in preserving order, there should also be compassion, mercy and forbearance incorporated into the character. Justice has a twin sister - love - and they should stand side by side. It has been repeatedly presented before me that God is observing every transaction in that office. "Thou God seest me," should be ever in mind; courtesy and Christian politeness should be exercised by every one who bears responsibilities in the office. They should have a sense of the encroachment upon others' rights which is so common in the world's practice, but which is an offense to God. The board of directors should ever act as under the divine eye, with a continual sense that they are finite men, and are liable to make mistakes in judgment, decisions, and plans, unless they are closely connected with God, and seeking to have every deficiency removed from their characters. As they are only weak and erring men themselves they should feel kindness and pity for others who may err. The divine standard must be met. You should take the Lord with you into every one of your councils. If you sense that God is in your assemblies every transaction will be conscientiously carefully and prayerfully considered. Every unprincipled act will be repressed, and uprightness will characterize the dealings in small as well as in large matters. There should be cultivation of universal kindness with the workers. First seek counsel of God, for this is necessary for you to properly counsel together. .... The spirit of Christ must be an abiding, controlling power over the hearts and mind. In the world the god of traffic is the god of fraud. It must not be so with those who are dealing with God's cause. The worldly principle and standard is not to be the standard of those who are connected with sacred things.

********************************************************************* db: 28OT ti: Testimony for the Church, No. 28 pg: 73 pr: 1 ********************************************************************* Adam and Eve suffered the terrible -- consequence of disobeying the express command of God. They might have reasoned, This is a very small sin, and will never be taken into account. But God treated the matter as a fearful evil; and the woe of their transgression will be

felt through all time. In the times in which we live sins of far greater magnitude are often committed by those who profess to be God's children. In the transaction of business, falsehoods are uttered and acted by God's professed people, that bring his frown upon them and a reproach upon his cause. The least departure from truthfulness and rectitude is a transgression of the law of God. ********************************************************************* db: 8ST pt: The Signs of the Times dt: 02-24-09 at: Business Principles of the Christian pr: 1 ********************************************************************* In his business life the Christian is to stand as a representative of the principles of heaven. He is bound by sacred obligations to bear witness to truth in its virtue and holiness. Gentleness and kindness and strict truthfulness should mark his words and actions. He who stands prepared to do the works of righteousness will not be deceived by the allurements of the enemy. His actions will be guided by an exalted sense of right, and he will be enabled to distinguish between right and wrong, between truth, exalted truth, and error. Those who enter the kingdom of heaven will be those who have reached the highest standard of moral obligation, those who have not sought to hide the truth or to deceive, those by whom God has been exalted and His word defended, those in whom principle has not been misapplied to vindicate the wiles of Satan. ********************************************************************* db: 7RH pt: Advent Review and Sabbath Herald dt: 03-10-03 at: The Workers Needed pr: 13 ********************************************************************* God calls for those who will be workers together with him. Connected with Christ, human nature becomes pure and true. Christ supplies the efficiency, and man becomes a power for good. Truthfulness and integrity are attributes of God, and he who possesses these attributes possesses a power that is invincible. Mrs. E. G. White.