The Principality of Lying

The principality of lying is one half of the twelfth principality of Satan; it works in concert with the principality of disobedience. Disobedience to the Word of God is disobedience to the truth (John 17:17); thus, to operate in disobedience is implicitly to operate in lies. The objective of this principality of Satan is to cause mankind to trust in lies (Jeremiah 29:31) and to speak lies: not speak righteousness (Psalm 52:3); and its attendant power is the lying spirit. This prince has at his disposal all lower ranking principalities and powers like judgment, pride, lust, etc. to use to fulfill his objective.

Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramothgilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king. ... And Micaiah said, As the LORD liveth, what the LORD saith unto me, that will I speak. ... And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. (1 Kings 22:6, 14, 19-22)

We can see in the scriptures above that a lying spirit can be very deceitful: able to convince even four hundred prophets that a lie is indeed the truth. This should be no wonder as their leader is the father of lies: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). If Satan is the father of lies, then people inhabited with a lying spirit are his children: "That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us" (Isaiah 30:9-11). Before our conversion, our hearts, due to disobedience, pride and lust, are predisposed towards lies: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). Since the principality of disobedience already has a foothold in us before we are even born, and it shares the twelfth principality with the principality of lying, it quickly calls in its other half the moment we are born into this world. "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies" (Psalm 58:3). Thus, every human after Adam and Eve—except Jesus—immediately after birth is infused with not only spirits of disobedience, pride and lust, as we stated in the prior section, but also with a lying spirit. In short, a child new to the world has at least four principalities in them: disobedience and lying in our spirit, and pride and lust in our flesh. Jesus, however, born "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3), had the Holy Ghost in his spirit, and pride and lust in his flesh. Of course, upon our conversion, disobedience and lying are cast out with our former spirit which is replaced with a new spirit infused with the Holy Ghost (see "Born Again"); thus being born again, enables us to be like Jesus (now we can start to be transformed by the renewing of our minds).

Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity. Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:4-6)

While the world may talk about honesty and integrity, lies are accepted as part of living in the world; after all, they say, "a little white lie won't hurt anyone." This ambiguity leads us to question absolutes; especially, the absoluteness of God: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). What's more, we give lip service to the fact that "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" (Numbers 23:19)? Once we accept that ambiguity is normal, we open ourselves to believing lies. The world tells us, "everything is relative." Well, if everything is indeed relative, then we Christians are most miserable. This necessitates that there must be something greater than God which impacts his actions, even though he has said, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22), and "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matthew 28:18). My brothers and sisters, this cannot be. God is "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8); what's more, he has said, "I am the LORD, I change not" (Malachi 3:6). A Christian that believes in ambiguity "shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it" (Matthew 7:26-27). Lies are inherent in the carnal nature into which we are born and we are quickly assimilated into believing the things we see, hear, touch, feel and smell. In other words, we are indoctrinated into being subject to our carnal nature: we are indoctrinated into making provision for the flesh (Romans 13:14). One of the first deceptions we fall under is to believe our own press—we believe the image we have created about ourselves: we dive headlong into self-idolatry (see "The Principality of Idolatry"). Another deception we buy into is the false belief that "people are basically good." This runs counter to scripture that states: "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9); and "we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6); and finally, "there is none good but one, that is, God" (Mark 10:18). Believing that people are basically good instead of basically evil sets us up for rejection. For instead of arming ourselves "not to think of men above that which is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6), and to expect persecution (John 16:33), we easily commit ourselves to people and open ourselves up to be rejected by them (see "The Principality of Rejection"). "But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man" (John 2:24-25).

The entrenchment of the principality of lying makes us susceptible to influence from the world. The principality of lying becomes a strong hold of false knowledge in the mind of the person infected. False knowledge, lies, are believed to be true. What's more, the power of the principality of lying—a lying spirit—works to cement lying as an unconscious habit, a false practice strong hold, in the infected person. The principality itself becomes a strong hold and its power secures its place in the person through another strong hold: lies are believed and lies are spoken (see "Strong Holds (Idols of the Heart)"). The infected person now looks for absoluteness in the masses: for comfort in numbers. They give onus to the majority, to what they say and do; especially, in the things that have "stood the test of time" or in the things that have been put forth by some recognized authority. Not recognizing that "A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin" (Proverbs 26:28), and that "they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy" (Jonah 2:8), the infected person is now susceptible to the principality of rejection and subsequently the principality of tradition.

DRAFT V2010-08-13T12:18:24 PM