TEXT: Ephesians 4:25

SUBJECT: Family Life #29: Teaching Your Kids to Tell the Truth

This is the fourth Sunday afternoon of the month, and with God’s help, we’ll continue our study of Family Life. The topic is teaching your kids to tell the truth.

This has always been an important part of parenting, but never more so than today. When I was a boy—of course many people lied—but "truth" itself was thought of as a real thing and a good one as well. My parents taught me this, but so did the schools and the media.

We no longer have that help. Many teachers, for example, don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘truth". And those who do are often too scared to say so. As for the media, no one takes the talking heads seriously. We all know they’re "spinning" the truth for ratings or votes. This means: If you don’t teach your kids to tell the truth, nobody else will.

You’ve got to get this straight: Lying will hurt your kids—both now and forever. For now, it will deform their character. If unrepented of, it will damn their souls!

Do you believe this? If so, what are you doing about it? Are you just hoping against hope that your kids will learn to tell the truth some way or other? Or, are you teaching them to tell the truth and holding them responsible for when they don’t do it?

Let me put it to you as bluntly as I can: If you’re not teaching your kids to tell the truth, you’re sending them to hell! Richard Mather was a Puritan pastor, and in one of his most striking sermons, he imagines a conversation between parents in heaven and children in hell,

I wonder if any word is guilty of more crimes than the word, "love": teenaged girls are deflowered in the name of love; babies are aborted in the name of love; middle-aged wives are divorced in the name of love; grandparents are unplugged in the name of love. So many loving words; so many hateful acts.

But of all the cruel things we do under the banner of kindness, none is worse than letting our kids lie and get away with it.

Teach your kids to tell the truth. Start early and stay with it. If you’ve waited too long already, then start now. Do it consistently, do it kindly, do it prayerfully, do it hopefully, but most of all,

By "telling the truth" I mean their words ought to conform to reality as much as possible. An honest mistake is not a lie. Neither is a half-truth, if told sincerely.

Maybe the easiest way to define "truth" is by contrast. Truth is the opposite of:

• Lying. A mother comes home to a broken lamp. She asks her boy, "Did you break the lamp?" "No" he says, when in fact, he did.

• Trickiness. The mother comes home to a broken lamp and shouts, "Who broke the lamp?" The kids say, "The cat did". But they fail to mention they were playing catch with the cat!

• Covering up. Mom comes home to a broken lamp and says, "Who broke the lamp?" Nobody says a word. Everyone knows who did it, but no one will say.

Truth corresponds to what is and answers as fully as it needs to. You don’t have to tell the whole truth all the time (that’s called discretion), but you’re never allowed to cover things up or to make things up!

Of course they do. For three good reasons:

Children are born liars. That’s not my opinion, but the teaching of the Bible, Psalm 58:3 says,

Under the spell of mushy sentiment, most people won’t admit it, but we all know it’s true. G.K. Chesterton once quipped,

Who taught your kids to lie? Did you give them lessons in the fine art of deceit? Did you ever say, "Come on, son, lie to Daddy!" Did you ever boast to your friends, "I was never much of a liar myself, but my boy’s got real potential!"

We don’t teach our kids to lie, but they know how to do it—by nature.

A second reason kids should be taught to tell the truth is because Many short-term benefits come from lying. The easiest way to get out of trouble is by telling a lie. It will make things worse in the long run, of course, but it works for now! And, after all, how many kids think of the long run? This natural desire to get out of trouble has to be countered by solid teaching on telling the truth,

A third reason to teach your kids to tell the truth is because Satan is at work in the world and in their souls. This is true, even if your kids are saved. What is the devil? Our Lord said he is

In terms of effort, no one is a better teacher than Satan. He never gets tired or gives up. If one method fails, he tries another; when that stops working, he goes to a third, and so on. If the devil is drilling your kids in the art of lying, shouldn’t you be doing something on the other side?

Your kids need to be taught to tell the truth. And no one is better qualified—or more responsible to do it—than you. Christians teachers, pastors, friends can have a good affect on them, but you can do far more than everyone else combined. So get busy! Teach your kids to tell the truth.

1. Set a good example.

The biggest liars in the world are not politicians, lawyers or salesmen, but parents! We make promises, and we don’t keep them. We issue threats, but we don’t carry them out. We lie over the phone and our kids hear us. We make excuses; we rationalize; we twist and turn the truth, and then we wonder why the kids are so deceitful.

If you want your kids to tell the truth, you show them how it’s done.

2. Come clean yourself.

No one is perfectly honest all the time. Everyone trims the truth now and then and, from time to time, goes back on his word. When we’ve done it with our kids, we ought to apologize for it. That will not undermine your credibility with them. In fact, it will make you far more believable. Covering up previous lies—or explaining them away or falling back on technicalities—adds one lie to another. And will make your kids more deceitful.

3. Don’t accuse them of lying without a very good reason.

Some parents are too fond of the word, Liar! Every time their kids say a word, they’re accused of lying. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the child is going to be blasted—no matter what he says—why should he tell the truth? Paul warns us to not provoke our children to wrath, "lest they be discouraged". Nothing is more disheartening to a kid than to be called a liar even when he’s telling the truth.

4. Don’t let them get away with technicalities.

By "technicality" I mean following the letter of the law and not the spirit—and doing it on purpose. For example, you tell your son to go to bed at nine o’clock. You come in at 9:30 and there he is—in bed playing cards with his brother. You say, "I told you to go to bed at nine o’clock!" But he says, "But I am in bed". Technically, he’s right—he got in bed at 9:00, but he knew that’s not what you meant. Don’t let him get away with an attorney’s trick!

If you do, you’re teaching them to lie in the worst possible way—cleverly,

"Now the serpent was more subtle

than any beast of the field".

5. Reduce or waive punishments when they tell the truth—without being caught.

Give your kids an incentive to tell the truth. If you punish their confessions and their lies alike, why would they come clean? Years ago, one of my sons did a very bad thing. I asked him about it and he said no, he didn’t do it. That night, he came to me confessing his sin. I told him it was so dangerous that I had to spank him, but I’d do it gently because he had told the truth. It had a wonderful effect on him and me.

At another time, he committed a lesser sin, and when he fessed up to it, I told him it was wrong, but because he was honest I’d let him off with a warning.

Give your kids an incentive for telling the truth.

6. Make lying a major offense.

Most people think lying is no big deal. But they’re wrong. Lying is a big deal—one of the biggest. It ought to be severely punished. Even in the lie is over some trifling issue.

My wife equates tracking mud into the house with the Apocalypse! To her, footprints on the carpet is The Mark of the Beast! But she’s wrong. Kids shouldn’t muddy the carpet, but doing it isn’t a major offense. But lying about it is! If your kids lie to you, punish them! Punish them every time. And make the punishment a big one.

7. Check up on stories.

My grandmother had nine children, all of whom swore she had eyes in the back of her head. They all lived in the country, of course, but whatever they did—in the woods or the creek or any where else, she always found out about it. She did not have magical powers, but she poked around to find out what her kids were up to!

If your kids tell you a story that sounds questionable, don’t call them liars, but check into it. You don’t have to be Columbo to conduct a little investigation. And most of the time, a little nosing around will either prove or disprove their story. Do that and you’re kids won’t be so quick to lie to you.

8. Evangelize your kids.

If lying is the work of the devil, the best way to wean your kids of it is conversion. We want our kids –not only to tell the truth—but to know the truth and to love the truth as it is in Jesus Christ!

How do kids come to know the Lord? In the same way adults do—by believing the Gospel.

"But how do they believe in Him of

Whom they have not heard?

And how do they hear without a preacher?"

You be the preacher! Teach your kids the Law of God—of course. But don’t leave it with the Law, their duty to obey it or the danger of disobeying it. Get to the Gospel! Tell them of God’s love, of the sacrifice of Christ, and His offer of salvation to everyone who believes. Acts 15:9 says the

"Heart is purified through faith".

Isn’t that what we’re looking for? Not just pure words, but pure hearts! Teaching and example and reward and punishment have parts to play, but ultimately, it is the Gospel that turns our lying kids into children who tell the truth.

I’ve got an assignment for every parent here: Go home today and ask your kids What is the Gospel? Some of you will be shocked at what they say!

"Be good, obey your parents, read

the Bible, go to church…

And, of course, the most common,

"Uh, I dunno".

9. Pray for them.

Prayer is the most spiritual act a believer can perform in this world. That’s why it is also the hardest. If our kids are good and honest, we feel secure and lose urgency to pray. If our kids are rotten and deceitful, we feel discouraged and cry, What’s the use?

But when it comes to our kids, there is no room for complacency or despair. No kid is too good to pray for—or too bad. Every kid needs it and no kid is beyond it.

Be the best parent you can be! But when you’ve done your best, pray for your kids. Because your best isn’t good enough!

When you’ve messed up royally and repeatedly—and so badly you’d be ashamed if anyone knew the kind of parent you really are, pray for your kids.

Teach your kids to tell the truth. Teach them by word and by deed. Teach them when they’re babies and when they all grown up. Teach them the beauty and blessing of truth. Teach them the ugliness and curse of lies. But mostly, teach them to love God, because when they do that, they’ll also love the truth.