The Price of a Lie

This week we saw a movie called Beyond the Gates of Splendor which was about the five missionaries who died attempting to contact the Auca Indians of Equador five decades ago. The movie was basically a documentary of that time and had interviews of the wives of the men who were speared to death as well as their children and colleagues. Those wives and colleagues had later successfully continued the work of sharing the love of Jesus with the Auca's begun by their husband and friends. It was an amazing story but what struck me the most was that the reason they were all speared to death was because one of the first three people they encountered, in order to avoid blame for his own irresponsibility, told the rest of the tribe that the missionaries had come to kill them. The death of the five men, five men with families and children of their own, was all because of one small lie.

One little lie. No wonder one of the ten most important rules for life is "Thou shalt not bear false witness." Satan is described in the Bible as the "Father of Lies." His one lie so many years ago resulted in the deaths of five men who were completely sold out for God. But in spite of that attempted intervention, the purposes of God were still achieved. Achieved because the wives and one sister refused to be detered from the purposes they shared with their husbands and continued to share the gospel with the Aucas. The Auca's slowly became Christians and gave up killing each other and killing those tribes around them. They turned away from hate and anger and were saved from killing each other off completely (not to mention a life of sin and an eternity without knowledge of God).

What a blessing that God can make good out of anything, even the schemes of Satan. Satan is the Father of Lies. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. What a magnificent contrast!