You have no idea how much reading this hurts me. I took you to be a sincere person, and I said as much near the end of the recently deleted thread.
I acknowledge that, sadly, it was gone before I could make a reply. I was supposed to thank you for your encouragement. So now, I thank you
Please bear with me to explain to you the context of lying in scriptures.
How does your quoted statement above mesh with
1 John 2:21-22,
Here is the verse:
I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because
no lie comes from the truth. 22
Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son.
Not every lie makes you a liar. Verse 22 is very specific about it. Same context holds for all other verses you mentioned.
Not all lies pollute/corrupt the Truth/God's Word (Verse 21):
- Lying to save another life/help someone in distress
- Lying to immigration to preach the Gospel to locals - many countries ban Christian missionaries and won't allow you in if you state your true intentions.
- Infiltrate churches that preach false teachings by pretending in order to win people to the true Gospel.
Even Jesus himself lied to His brothers to protect their reputation (so they won't be hated by the world) for apparently, the brothers of Jesus will serve an important role later on in the early Christian church. (John 7:6-13)
If Jesus went with His brothers, the Jews may have conspired against His brothers too and may have negatively impacted the early Church.
As for lies that corrupt/deny Jesus/God's Word:
- You only become a liar if you corrupt the Truth itself like for instance, you preach that it's okay to be a friend of this world as opposed to James 4:4. You preach that it's easier to enter Heaven as a wealthy man or woman than poor opposing Matthew 19:24. The list is very long for false teachings being preached in many churches today.
- Lying to serve personal agendas - advance in career/get a promotion at work, to grab an opportunity for worldly success, achieve favorable position in worldly dealings, achieve higher profit in business. In this case, it shows your attachment to worldly things which Jesus preaches against.
It amazes me that the things Masonry is falsely accused of are admitted as the game plan of those who accuse.
There's a distinction between the "lies" of O.F.F and Masonry:
O.F.F's game plan is to take advantage of his membership in masonry to get people out of the organization. He uses the membership as proof, he was inside the org for some time.
Yet, he also lies not being a member, well, there's actually a grain of truth in it... While he is a member on paper, many of his views opposes Masonry. I wouldn't call that "member" rather a spy or traitor or even an enemy.
Masonry on the other hand, wants others to believe they are not a religion, yet, the have every marks and rituals of a religion.
If only Masonry teaches the Truth, nothing more, nothing less then I would have no issues with that lie. In fact, they would actually be beneficial to God's Will. And through that lie, attract even unbelievers to knowing the Truth.
Unfortunately, they seem to have few things that make up a false religion. I wouldn't know more beyond those few. But those few is enough to warn me away from Freemasonry.