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. LIES AND DECEPTION. "Stop lying to one another, now that you have discarded the old nature with its deeds and have put on the new nature, which is being constantly renewed in the image of its Creator and brought to know God." (Col 3:9,10 NEB). "Refuse ever to tell a lie; it is a habit from which no good comes." (Eccus 7:13 NEB). 'He that is habituated to deceptions and artificialities (1) in trifles, will try in vain to be true in matters of importance; for truth is a thing of habit rather than of will. You cannot in any given case by any sudden and single effort will to be true, if the habit of your life has been insincerity.' (F. W. Robertson). "Truth stands firm for ever, but lies live only for a moment." (Prov 12:19 NEB). 'The essence of lying is in deception, (2) not in words; a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence; and all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded; so that no form of blinded conscience is so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived because the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of utterance.' (J. Ruskin). "A lying disposition brings disgrace; the shame of it can never be shaken off." (Eccus 20:26 NEB).
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