Part 3, You Don't Have to Believe the Lie Anymore: When the Liar's Voice Meets the Voice That Cannot Lie

Reflections on John 8:32, 44 · John 14:6 · Hebrews 6:18

When the Voice in Your Head Won't Quit

Can I ask you something personal today, friend?

Is there a voice you've been hearing — not out loud, not through anyone's lips — but deep inside, in the quiet places where you do your hardest living? A voice that tells you that you are too far gone. Too broken to be fixed. Too damaged to be loved. Too much of a mess for God to use.

Maybe it's been whispering for years. Maybe it started in childhood, was reinforced by failure, and has now settled into the furniture of your inner life like something you've just accepted as true.

I need you to hear me today — and more importantly, I need you to hear Him:

That voice is lying to you. It has always been lying to you. And you don't have to believe it for one more second.

Because the God who made you, who knows every aspect of your story, who has never once looked away from your life — that God has something to say. And what He says, He says with a force and a finality that the enemy cannot touch.

Buckle up. This is going to change something in you. You are going to experience a new freedom!

Know Your Enemy — And his Lethal Weapon

Before we talk about the Victor, let's be clear about the villain — because you need to understand exactly what you're dealing with.

His name is Lucifer. And he has one weapon he has used effectively for thousands of years.

True, he has limited power. He has limited authority. He has limited strength. He lost total power, authority and strength at the cross. His one effective weapon — his only play — is lying. It is all he has left. Yet, it is a most effective weapon.  Lies destroy marriages. Lies collapse businesses. Lies send innocent people to prison and allow guilty ones to walk free. Lies whisper to a teenager that she is worthless until she believes it with everything she has. Lies tell a man that one more drink won't matter, one more pill won't hurt, that nobody loves him anyway so what difference does it make. Lies convince an entire generation that there is no God — that they are accidents, here for no reason, loved by no one.¹

And somewhere underneath all of those lies — every single one of them — is the same ancient voice. The same murderous intent dressed in sheep's clothing.

Jesus said something about him that should both sober you and set you free at the same time.  Speaking to the religious leaders of His day He said:

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." — John 8:44 (NASB)²

Did you catch the depth of that? Jesus doesn't say the devil tells lies the way a person might sometimes shade the truth. He says the devil speaks from his own nature. Lying is not what he does. It is what he is. There is not a single molecule of truth in him — no core of honesty buried somewhere underneath, no moment of good intention. He is the original source, the fountainhead, the architect of every deception that has ever whispered to a weary soul in the dark.

And here is the thing about a liar: a liar's power ends the moment the lie is exposed.

That is exactly what we are about to do.

The One Who Cannot Lie

Now — feel the full weight of the contrast.

Into a world absolutely saturated with the devil's deceptions, the writer of Hebrews drops one of the most liberating declarations in all of Scripture:

"…it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to LIE…" — Hebrews 6:18 (NASB)⁶

That word "impossible" in the Greek is ἀδύνατον — *adynaton.*⁷ Let's open it up, because it is extraordinary.

It is built from two parts: a- (the Greek prefix meaning "not") and dynatos (meaning "powerful" or "able") — the same root from which we get our English word dynamite. The NASB Discovery Bible's HELPS word-studies define adynaton as: *"powerless, unable — what is not possible because it falls outside the scope of one's power or nature."*⁸ 

Read that again slowly.

God does not choose not to lie the way you might choose not to eat a second piece of cake. God lacks the capacity to lie. It is structurally, constitutionally, eternally outside the scope of what He is able to do — not because He is weak, but because He is perfect. He is Truth. He is light — and as John declares, in Him there is no darkness at all. Not a shadow. Not a particle. Not a trace.

A holy God cannot produce an unholy thing any more than the sun can produce darkness. It is a categorical impossibility — not a limitation of His power, but a confirmation of His perfection.

So hear this, dear friend: every word God has ever spoken over your life was spoken by a Being who is constitutionally INCAPABLE of deceiving you. There is no asterisk. No hidden clause. No bait and switch. When He says He loves you — He loves you. When He says He will never leave you — He will never leave you. When He says He has plans for your welfare and not for harm — He means every single syllable.  When He says every promise is yes and amen, you can STAND on it!  God is INCAPABLE of breaking a single, solitary promise in His word, because His word is a reflection of who He is -- TRUTH.

The devil is the father of lies. God cannot speak, utter, write, produce even one.

You are dealing with two voices. And only one of them is telling you the truth.

THE Truth — Not A Truth

Now — here is where it gets glorious.

Into that same broken world, Jesus stood up and made one of the most audacious claims a human voice has ever carried:

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life." — John 14:6 (NASB)³

Notice what He did not say. He did not say "I am a truth" — one option among many, one path you might consider alongside the others. He said THE truth. In the Greek, that definite article is ἡ (hē) — and it is doing enormous theological work.⁴ In Greek, the definite article marks the one and only. The singular and exclusive. The One that stands entirely apart from every other thing in its category.

Jesus is not offering Himself as a useful philosophy. He is declaring Himself to be the very ground of reality — the One by Whom all truth is measured and from Whom all truth flows.

And in the Aramaic that Jesus almost certainly spoke in daily life, the word for truth is shrara — from a root meaning something firm, solid, bedrock. A foundation that does not crack. A ground that does not shift.⁵ When Jesus said "I am the shrara," every person within earshot understood what He was claiming: I am the immovable, unshakeable, eternal ground beneath all of existence.

Not a feeling. Not a preference. Not a cultural moment.

The Truth. Singular. Exclusive. Eternal.

And friend — He (TRUTH) is on your side.

You can rest in God — Who is True.(see Isaiah 65:16; John 17:3).  You can rest in His Word — which is truth.⁹ You can rest in Christ — Who is THE Truth, shrara, bedrock beneath your feet. And you can rest in the Holy Spirit — Whom Jesus called "the Spirit of truth"¹⁰ — Who does not lead you into opinion or approximation, but into all truth. (John 16:13)

The entire Trinity is arrayed on the side of truth. And the entire Trinity is arrayed on the side of you.

The Word That Breaks Every Chain

Now here is the liberating punchline — the word that changes everything.

Jesus looked at people who were bound. Bound by shame. Bound by religion. Bound by the accumulated weight of years of the enemy's whispering. And He looked them in the eye and said:

"…you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." — John 8:32 (NASB)¹¹

The Greek word translated "make free" is ἐλευθερόω — *eleutheroō.*¹² This is the word you use for a slave being released from chains. For prison doors swinging open. For shackles dropping to the ground. It is total, structural, irreversible liberation — not just a better mood or a slight improvement in perspective, but the deep, permanent emancipation of a soul.

And notice — Jesus does not say the truth might help you feel a little better. He says it will make you free. That verb is a declaration. A promise. With the full force of adynaton behind it — spoken by the One who cannot lie, about a freedom that cannot fail to arrive.

In the Aramaic tradition, shrara — truth — and the concept of release are deeply connected.¹³ To walk in truth is to walk unbound. The enemy has no legal hold over a soul that is standing on the Word of God. The enemy is a liar, and the moment his lies are exposed to the light of THE Truth, they lose their power. Every. Single. Time.

This is why Jesus announced His mission in the words of Isaiah 61: "To proclaim liberty to the captives." — Luke 4:18 (NASB)¹⁴

He came specifically, intentionally, on a rescue mission — for you. The opposing forces that have pressed in on your life, the whispers that have followed you through your darkest seasons, the accusations that feel truer about you than God's Word — they are about to meet the One who cannot be deceived and cannot deceive.

What hell dispatched as your sentence, Heaven has already overturned as your freedom.

Walk Like It

Near the end of his long, extraordinary life — a life that had seen persecution, exile, and the death of nearly every friend he ever loved — the apostle John wrote these words:

"I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth." — 3 John 1:4 (NASB)¹⁵

That word "walking" in the Greek is περιπατέω — *peripateō.*¹⁶ It means to order your entire life around something. To make it the rhythm of every single step. Think of it in terms of taking a walk around a park.  A daily exercise routine. Not a one-time moment of intellectual agreement with correct theology — but a daily, deliberate, joyful choosing to live inside the reality that God's Word establishes rather than the counterfeit reality the enemy is constantly trying to sell.

You do not have to listen to his lies anymore.

You do not have to believe that you are too broken to be healed, too far gone to be found, too damaged to be loved. You do not have to accept the sentence the enemy has pronounced over your life — because he is a liar, he has always been a liar, and the Judge of all the earth has already overturned his verdict.  You are FREE, because the Word, the TRUTH, as already set you FREE!  Hallelujah!  You have been LIBERATED by the TRUTH, by Christ!  You have His word implanted within you! You have the Spirit of Truth dwelling inside of you!  And He will bring back to your remembrance every word of Truth at the exact moment you need it!  When the enemy comes in like a flood, the TRUTH will make you RISE!  Glory to God! 

So spread your wings, dear child of God!

Face the opposition — knowing full well that the Lord is Lord over every voice, every whisper, every accusation that has ever been leveled against you. Greater is HE (The Truth) that is in you, than he that is in the world!  The One who cannot lie has spoken over your life. The shrara — the bedrock, the unshakeable ground — is over you, beside you, beneath your feet, INSIDE OF YOU. The eleutheroō — the irreversible liberation — is already yours through the grace, mercy, and love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! 

The Truth has set you free.

Embrace it!  Speak it!  Rejoice in it.  Walk in it.

Hallelujah!

References

¹ For statistics on the psychological and sociological effects of deception, see Feldman, Robert S. The Liar in Your Life. Twelve/Hachette, 2009, pp. 14–22.

² John 8:44, New American Standard Bible (NASB). Lockman Foundation, 1995.

³ John 14:6, NASB.

⁴ Zodhiates, Spiros, ed. The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament. AMG Publishers, 1992. Entry: ὁ/ἡ/τό (definite article), p. 1006.

⁵ Lamsa, George M. Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text. HarperOne, 1933. See also Tverberg, Lois. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus. Baker Books, 2018, pp. 44–48. Aramaic root: ܫܪܳܪܳܐ (shrara) — truth, firmness, solidity.

⁶ Hebrews 6:18, NASB.

⁷ Zodhiates. Complete Word Study Dictionary: NT. Entry: ἀδύνατος (adynatos), pp. 47–48.

⁸ Thomas, Robert L., ed. New American Standard Bible: The Discovery Bible with HELPS. Moody Publishers, 1992. HELPS word-study entry: #102 (adynatos): "powerless, unable — what is not possible because it falls outside the scope of one's power or nature."

⁹ John 17:17, NASB: "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth."

¹⁰ John 16:13, NASB: "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth."

¹¹ John 8:32, NASB.

¹² Zodhiates. Complete Word Study Dictionary: NT. Entry: ἐλευθερόω (eleutheroō), p. 548.

¹³ Tverberg, Lois. Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus. Zondervan, 2012, pp. 61–63. On the Aramaic connection between shrara (truth) and liberation.

¹⁴ Luke 4:18, NASB. Quoting Isaiah 61:1.

¹⁵ 3 John 1:4, NASB.

¹⁶ Zodhiates. Complete Word Study Dictionary: NT. Entry: περιπατέω (peripateō), pp. 1128–1129.