God, Who Cannot Lie

God, Who Cannot Lie!

We can actually turn satan’s tactics against him?

You can take the words of a false prophet and use them to receive blessings! I will prove to you that the words spoken by Balaam intended as a curse can actually be used by you to ensure that you receive God’s blessings! We can literally turn satan’s evil schemes against satan!

Let’s notice the specific words of the prophet Balaam who was supposed to curse God’s people, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num 23:19). Notice that the words spoken by Balak, who hired Balaam, will also come to pass, “And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether!” (Num 23:11) Ironically, through these very words recorded in Scripture Balaam has given Christianity a very powerful tool that we can turn against satan.

Let’s begin with the perspective that it is impossible for God to lie, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2). The concept of God’s inability to lie is definitely acknowledged in the Bible, “in which it was impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18). Let’s focus for just for a minute exactly why it is impossible for God to lie. Repeat after me, “It is impossible for God to lie!” Say it again! There is an implicit action attributed to God in that statement; God’s implied action is that He must speak. In other words, if one cannot speak, they cannot lie!

A Lie requires words! Webster’s Dictionary identifies “lie” as, “an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive.” So lying requires some form of a voice! God can never lie because whenever He speaks all the power of Heaven moves to make His word come to pass! This is the same incredible message that God is teaching to His sons through Jesus, “they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father” (Matt 18:19). Therefore, God who is the creator of all things did not start the whole concept of lying!

So how did lying get started in the first place? Jesus identified Satan as the first liar, “he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). In that passage, God even relates together the sins of murder and lying. The Bible further teaches that those who have been blinded by Satan have actually changed God’s truth; “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God . . . And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God . . . Who changed the truth of God into a lie! (Notice that these individuals sought to change something that is “uncorruptible!” Since the change must have taken place in their minds and in their words; therefore, their words would only have created a false reality! No man can change God’s glory!)” (Rom 1:21-25). The Bible teaches that they changed the truth of God into a lie! Yet, we just read three scriptures from God’s word which claim that God cannot lie; (1) Num 23:19); (2) Titus 1:2); and (3) Heb 6:18!

We’re going to take a short and simple five-question test that I have entitled “Truth or Lie?” Let’s start:

Without turning to the indicated scriptures and freely using the column “What Modern Religions Might Teach,” answer each statement in the “Reply” column below left, based upon the declaration in the “Truth or Lie Statement” (2^nd Column).

As you probably realize these are difficult questions within the Christian faith! Mankind was commanded not to eat of “the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil,” “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen 2:17). Did God know that Adam and Eve would eat of the tree? Was God aware of satan’s influence? God knew everything, “for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning (God knew everything; even the end of all things from the beginning of time), and from ancient times the things that are not yet done” (Isa 46:9-10). God knew that mankind would die through Adam’s fall and that he would lose all that he possessed from the beginning of the creation, “For as in Adam all die” (1 Cor 15:22). However, God fashioned restitution through the Messiah, “even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). God actually made a way for man to be restored to his original state, “Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). The Messiah provided us with the tools and the method through which “restitution” can be made. The Greek word for restitution, “apokathistemi” pronounced as (ap-ok-ath-is'-tay-mee) which means “to reconstitute (in health, home or organization).” That difficult six syllable Greek word is used only in this passage of the Bible. It literally means to restore (again) or to set a thing in its original condition. Acts 3:21 therefore teaches us that Jesus will remain in heaven until the season of the restitution of all things. However, Paul taught that now is the “time” (Paul used the same word as Luke used in Acts 3:21 for “times”) to begin to “cast off” of the works of the devil, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light”(Rom 13:11-12). So the question we need to ask is, “How do we “cast off the works of darkness?” John teaches, “and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). Faith gives us the victory, but what kind of faith?

The purpose of this Bible Study is not to argue the philosophical questions regarding the nature of evil and God’s hand in the creation of evil. Neither is the study intended as the jumping-off point regarding the semantics of the word “evil!” Stated as simply as possible, this study recognizes that evil does clearly exist in this world! The goal of this Bible Study is to expound on the Messiah’s solution (the message from the anointed one) regarding the method we use to “cast off of the works of darkness!” Through His word, Jesus gave Christians some very specific instruction regarding the method of overcoming evil. We will go far beyond the simple scripture which states, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). We will essentially introduce and describe actual tangible observable methods, which if followed, will result in the elimination of any specific evil in every given circumstance! This is a bold statement; but we have a bold Messiah Who spoke bold things!

Our Messiah made some bold statements and claims. He taught that we should actually expect to experience faith-based power through His name. He actually gave us authority to speak to inanimate objects and assured us that we could change those things based upon our words! He told us that “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt 24:35). Jesus spoke of the “God kind” of faith! He assured His disciples that they possessed the same kind of faith as He! “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:22-24).

As we consider the words spoken by our LORD in the previous passage, realize that Jesus had cursed a fig tree the day before and the disciples were amazed at seeing the tree withered, “And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God” (Mark 11:21-22). Note that Jesus told them, “Have faith in God!” This is an imperative sentence; we call it a command. It is also a revelatory statement; Jesus revealed to them that He used words mixed with faith when He spoke the curse upon the tree. Jesus encouraged them to use the same kind of faith! He wanted them to employ the God kind of faith! Jesus spoke to an inanimate object and it resulted in an uncommon change after a short period of time. Jesus did not lie! God cannot lie!

Almost immediately, Jesus transitioned His teaching example regarding faith from the tree to a mountain. The same kind of faith that produces a small miracle will also produce a very large one! Jesus’ message was, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

As emphasized through the fig tree, we certainly do have the ability to obtain whatsoever things we pray for; however, we must believe that the things that we speak will actually come to pass! The question is, “Do you really believe that everything that you say will actually come to pass?” One of the main reasons that we are not very effective in this area of faith is that we humans unknowingly speak foolish things out of jest, anger or other emotional responses! In so doing, we speak idle words that are actually untrue, “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt 12:36). We think it is okay if we say, “I was just joking.” or “I didn’t mean it.” However, misusing our power of speech as in these examples only serves to dilute our power of speech! We must realize that real power comes through our speaking; therefore, we need to draw on that powerful ability very carefully, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation (Jeshua – Jesus) of God” (Ps 50:23). Jesus will actually show-up through our spoken requests when our speech is properly ordered. The key is that our spirit must be retrained to believe whatever our words say!

Whenever we speak something that is not true we are in fact harmfully training our inner spirit through those idle words to ignore our own speech “their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not” (Luke 24:11). We have wrongly trained our spirit to disbelieve our words! This weakens the power placed in our own spirit! What we do not realize is that the witness of our spirit is essential to the completed act of faith. It is imperative that we correct this predicament. We need to train our inner spirit to believe and thus respond to every word that we speak! Every lie that we speak chips away at having our spirit in total agreement with our words. Just like the Godhead is in total agreement, so likewise our own three-part being needs to be in total agreement. When our spirit and soul (the heart) are in total agreement then our body will naturally follow in conformity, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov 4:23).

Let’s take the example of sowing a seed for financial breakthrough. We cannot speak positive words over our seed during an offering, and then go out from the church and complain about how broke we are! In this situation we would have just aborted the seed earlier sown! However, it gets worse, through those words, our spirit would have just been trained to ignore our words because our faith based words are double minded, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally . . . and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8). Our faith must remain single minded and stable. We are to believe what we speak and speak what we believe & continue to speak it until we see the manifestation of our belief!

Double mindedness renders its victim into a state of weakness! Once in that state the individual is left unable to speak in faith to drive out powerful illnesses. When confronted with these situations, even if the person speaks the right words and quotes the right scriptures, the devil will certainly reply, “You must be kidding! Who are you to speak to me like that! You don’t even believe that your own words will drive out this cancer!” Through double mindedness, the devil recognizes that the words of the individual are meaningless. On the other hand, if we believers train our spirit to single-mindedly focus its powerful weaponry exactly on what we say, “nothing doubting” then our spirit responds positively to our words and the God kind of faith naturally follows!

We should not fail to recognize the absolute need for our hearts to be purified! Jesus taught that faith will not operate in an atmosphere of unforgiveness, “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matt 5:23-24). Jesus taught that we must purify our hearts when in unforgiveness. We cannot be overtly involved in unforgiveness and then expect God to answer our prayers, “neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom 6:13). In order to drive out the darkness using the instruments of the light, we need to be walking in the light!

There remains one final element that must exist in order to receive manifestations of the God kind of faith. Jesus taught that when we pray we must “believe that we receive” those things that we have prayed for! When we properly do this we shall have whatsoever things we desire! Let’s look at a concrete example which conveys the “believe that we receive” concept! Do you remember the last time that you won a raffle or the last time that out of the blue you won something? How did you act immediately when you were informed that you had won the prize? You jumped and shouted and yelled-out something like, “Praise the Lord!” At that very moment you were unknowingly performing something akin to the Bible form of “believe that you receive!” This is the exact kind of response and inner emotion that we need when we ask God for something in prayer, “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). This “believing that we receive” should make us ecstatic or at the very least completely assured! When we exercise faith in this fashion, then our words and our spirit and even our emotions come into agreement. At this point God observes our pure beliefs; He then responds and sends His angels to perform His Word that we have claimed in our lives!

Real faith takes God at his Word and says, “Lord, you said it in your Word, therefore, I prayed for it, and I now believe it!” When a believing person arrives at this attitude, it is a settled deal! Why? The word of God says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num 23:19). God actually desires to speed up His blessings to his believing people, “Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it” (Jer 1:12). God is actually looking for people of faith in whom He may show Himself strong, “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (2 Chron 16:9)!

It pleasures God and He seeks people in the earth who will exercise His faith, “without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb 11:6). God is looking for some one who will mix faith with the word of God! Until we mix faith with God’s word it will not produce!

The resulting manifestation of our faith is guaranteed when seven fundamental elements are all working together as identified in the table that follows:

There are some who ridicule this God kind of faith! They claim that the one who speaks about something that does not yet exist is foolish. From their perspective, the believer is simply not facing reality! However, the skeptic actually is the one who needs to come to more intimately know the true God, “who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom 4:17).

Let’s face the true reality; who is true and who is the liar? Are you calling those things which be not as though they were? Are you daily confessing things such as: bills, be paid; joy, be full; debt, be gone; health, be restored; peace, be on my family; favor, be on my home; bank account, be overflowing? If you are not calling things into existence then you are squandering your time and are not taking full advantage of the power of your words or the authority that Jesus has given to you! God placed authority in our mouths. In essence, we are actually discovering that we can tap into Gods form of physical materialization! We are learning to use our dominion to call things that do not exist into being! We are learning how to build things using the unseen realm to create things that are seen in our physical world.

The children of Israel spied out the land flowing with milk and honey. However, when ten of the spies reported, “they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying . . . And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Num 13:32-33). There is no way that the inhabitants of the land could have been worse than the Egyptians! Yet the people wailed, “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?” (Num 14:1-3).

However, notice the conflicting report given by the final two spies, “And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.” (Num 14:6-9).

The concept that we must observe in the Israelites is that every human automatically receives the elemental results of the words that they speak! Just like there is a law of gravity so too there is a spiritual law regarding our words, I call it “Logogenesis.” Words always produce natural results whether good or bad! We have just observed the Israelites who did not believe that their spoken words would actually produce natural results! Had they lived in our day and time, they would have made fun of Joshua and Caleb calling them the “Promised Land,” “name it and claim it band!”

Does the Bible really teach a cause and effect relationship as regards words that humans speak? Let’s observe the book of Proverbs, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (Prov 18:21). There is definitely power in the spoken word as we observed in the ancient Israelites, “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness” every one from that generation ended up dying in the wilderness according to their words! Only the two spies who gave a faithful report entered the Promised Land. Do you think the Bible teaches a cause and effect relationship regarding our words?

When we place our words and faith in Jesus’ name we are not just wishing and hoping! We are not simply trying to make our spoken beliefs materialize! We have a covenant with the Truthful God who does not lie! Jesus did not lie to us when he told us that we have the ability to move mountains! When we believe him we are essentially telling him, “God we believe you! You are a truthful God!” On the other hand, when we act in unbelief we are agreeing with satan concerning God’s character! The unbelieving say through their disbelief, “God is a liar; humans cannot move mountains with mere words! What we must realize is that Jesus either went too far in his statement about moving mountains or He is the Master of the Universe! I believe the latter!

We believers receive what we petition of God! When believers receive and then praise God they are giving honor to the covenant keeping, truthful God! We were born to live in praise! An automobile engine will not work outside of an atmosphere of oil. We likewise must operate in an atmosphere of praise and worship. When we are not inside the protective environment of praise we are misplaced like a fish out of water! We were born to live in praise! God made us to give praise to Him, “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases” (Ps 103:1-3).

There are approximately 7,000 promises identified in the Bible! Find the promise regarding your personal needs and then get in tune with the following fundamental elements of faith which produce manifestation:

Speak often of the privilege and the right that you have to receive the promises of God. Then start singing, dancing, and rejoicing over the fact that God’s word is more sure than the authority of His very Name! God performs His word, “Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it” (Jer 1:12). God gets pleasure in making his word come to pass, “For I am the LORD: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek 12:25).

God cannot lie. This is a bedrock truth that we can turn against satan! God will always make good his word, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num 23:19).

Well, what do you think? Is it true that, “if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done?”

Let us choose to use the very words of Balaam who was satan’s emissary against satan, “God is not a man, that he should lie!” (Num 23:19).

Written by M. Larry Perrino 5/9/2005