The Divine Fact Checker: The Inescapable Consequences of Lies Text: Proverbs 19:5
Introduction: A Universe Built on Truth
We live in a time that is dominated by the Lie. The Lie is the coin of the realm. It comes at you from every direction. You are lied to by our culture, by our political authorities, and by the devil, who is the father of all such things. He began his assault on humanity with a lie, "You will not surely die," and our race has been trafficking in falsehood ever since. The Fall was the direct result of believing a lie over against the explicit Word of God.
Because of this, our generation has come to believe that truth is malleable, that it is something we can construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct to fit our desires. We think we can create our own reality with our words. We speak of "my truth" and "your truth," as though truth were a personal accessory. But the book of Proverbs, and indeed all of Scripture, operates on a completely different and far more solid foundation. The universe is not a postmodern creative writing project. It is a created reality, spoken into existence by a God who is Truth, and who cannot lie. Consequently, reality has a grain. It has fixed laws, both physical and moral. And when we speak and act against that grain, we do not break the laws of reality; we are broken by them.
This is the great folly of the liar. He thinks he is creating a tactical advantage for himself. He thinks he is weaving a clever web that will entrap others and advance his own cause. But what he is actually doing is weaving his own shroud. He is sawing off the branch he is sitting on. To lie is to declare war on the fabric of a universe that God has designed for truth. It is an act of cosmic treason, and God, the great King, does not let treason go unpunished.
The proverb before us today is a stark and simple declaration of this principle. It is a double-barreled statement that leaves no room for evasion. It addresses the formal, public lie of the false witness, and the more informal, pervasive lie of one who simply "breathes out lies." In both cases, the verdict is the same: there is no escape. God is the ultimate fact-checker, and His judgment is both certain and final.
The Text
"A false witness will not go unpunished, And he who breathes out lies will not escape."
(Proverbs 19:5 LSB)
The Formal Lie and Its Guaranteed Judgment
The first clause of this proverb deals with a specific and public form of lying:
"A false witness will not go unpunished..." (Proverbs 19:5a)
A "false witness" points directly to the legal setting of a courtroom. This is a direct echo of the ninth commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Exodus 20:16). The health and justice of any society depend entirely on the integrity of its legal proceedings. When truth is abandoned in the courtroom, justice becomes impossible. The court becomes a place not of vindication for the righteous, but of oppression and plunder. When men can be destroyed by lies under the color of law, the very foundations of the society are destroyed.
The Old Testament law took this with the utmost seriousness. The penalty for perjury was not a mere slap on the wrist. The principle of Lex Talionis, an eye for an eye, was applied directly to the false witness. "The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst" (Deuteronomy 19:18-19). If you lied to get a man executed, you were to be executed. If you lied to get him fined a thousand dollars, you were to be fined a thousand dollars. This is true, restorative justice. It makes the punishment fit the crime, and it creates a powerful disincentive for anyone tempted to use the courts for personal vengeance.
But our proverb here states a higher principle. A false witness may, through cleverness or corruption, escape the judgment of a human court. But he "will not go unpunished." The Hebrew is emphatic; it is a settled, unalterable fact. Why? Because there is a higher court, and the Judge of all the earth will do right. God Himself is the witness to every oath, the observer of every testimony. Man may be deceived, but God is not mocked. The books will be opened, and every word will be accounted for. Jesus Himself warns us, "I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak" (Matthew 12:36). If every careless word, how much more every calculated, malicious, and destructive lie spoken under oath?
This is a promise of God's active, governing justice in the world. He is not a distant, deistic landlord. He is involved. And while His judgment may not always be immediate, it is always certain. The wheels of God's justice may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
The Habitual Liar and His Inevitable Entrapment
The second clause broadens the scope from the courtroom to all of life.
"And he who breathes out lies will not escape." (Proverbs 19:5b)
The imagery here is potent. This is not someone who tells an occasional lie under pressure. This is someone who "breathes out lies." Deception is his native atmosphere. It is as natural to him as respiration. His words are a constant stream of falsehood, exaggeration, slander, and flattery. This describes a character, a settled disposition. This is the man whose native tongue is the language of the serpent.
And the verdict for him is the same: he "will not escape." Escape what? He will not escape the consequences that God has woven into the fabric of reality. First, he will not escape the destruction of his own soul. To become a liar is to warp your own character into a grotesque parody of the image of God. God is truth; the liar makes himself into the image of the devil. Second, he will not escape the destruction of his relationships. Trust is the currency of all healthy human interaction. The habitual liar debases this currency until he is bankrupt. He becomes isolated, despised, and alone, trapped in the web of his own deceit. No one can build a life, a family, or a business on a foundation of lies.
But ultimately, he will not escape the judgment of God. This proverb is repeated almost verbatim just a few verses later, with a slight and terrifying modification: "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish" (Proverbs 19:9). The end of this road is not just punishment; it is destruction. The final destination for all unrepentant liars is the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). This is not an overreaction on God's part. It is the necessary and just outcome for those who have given their ultimate allegiance to the Father of Lies over the God of Truth.
The liar thinks he is a master of evasion, but he cannot evade God. He may run, but he cannot hide. Every lie he tells is another stone he lays in the wall of his own prison. He thinks he is gaining freedom, but he is forging his own chains. He will not escape.
The Gospel for Liars
This proverb, like all statements of God's law, is grim news for all of us. For who among us can say they have never borne false witness, never shaded the truth for their own advantage, never let a misleading impression stand? "All mankind are liars" (Psalm 116:11). The law condemns us all. If this is where the story ended, we would all be without hope, awaiting our certain punishment and inevitable perishing.
But this is precisely why the Gospel is such glorious news. The central event of all human history was a trial where the only truly innocent man was condemned by false witnesses. At the trial of Jesus Christ, "the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward" (Matthew 26:59-60). The ultimate lie was used to condemn the ultimate Truth.
And on the cross, Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, took upon Himself the punishment that we, the liars, deserved. He took the divine sentence for every false witness, every slander, every deceitful word. He absorbed the full penalty that the law demanded. Why? So that liars like us could be forgiven. So that we who have breathed out lies could be given a new heart and a new spirit, the Spirit of Truth.
The escape that is impossible for the liar on his own terms is made possible through the substitutionary work of Christ. The way to escape the unpunished sentence is to flee to the one who was punished in our place. The way to escape perishing is to cling to the one who perished for our sake and rose again.
Therefore, the application for us is twofold. First, we must repent of our lies. We must call them what God calls them: sin. We must confess them to God and, where necessary, to those we have wronged. We must stop breathing the polluted air of deceit and begin to breathe the clean air of God's truth. Second, we must rejoice in the forgiveness that is found in Christ alone. Our record is not one of perfect truth-telling. But if we are in Christ, His perfect record is credited to our account. We are not punished because He was. We do not perish because He did.
In a world drowning in lies, the church is called to be a pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). We do this not because we are naturally more honest than anyone else, but because we have been saved by the Truth Himself. We are a people who know the high cost of lies and the even higher cost of the grace that forgives them.