At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; And a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue.”
Proverbs 17:4
One of the things we really need to understand is that in a world so affected by the prince of liars, and given the essential deceitfulness of this world and its baubles, there must be an economy of lies. Put another way, there is a marketplace of lies. And put yet another way, when it comes to liars, lies, and lying, there is a supply and demand curve.
When talking about household goods, if no one buys something, then the factory will stop producing them. If the market for purchasing something heats up, then it is not long before the factory heats up.
In this proverb, we are told about the sin of buyers, and not just the sellers. What does a wicked man do? He gives heed to false lips. He went out into the market to buy. And what does a liar do? He gives ear to someone with something negative to say?
It is obviously lying to tell lies, and this is something that pretty much everyone should grant. But it is also a form of lying to listen to them. It is a sin to behave in such a way as to create a market for lies, because someone is going to be there to fulfill the demand.
How does this work? It happens whenever a “buyer” wants to hear something negative. When he hears a juicy bit of gossip, he wants to treasure it under his tongue. And because he is after the sweetness of a lacerating report, it does not matter to him whether or not the report is true. He gets the same kick regardless. The same thing is true of words published online. The satisfaction of circulating truth is not the satisfaction he was after.
This is also the motivation for not caring to learn what the Scriptures teach about the principles of justice. Learning those principles would be tiresome.
So the bottom line is this: being a consumer of lies is a sin, and it is what keeps the devil’s factories humming.
