Using Hate to Numb the Conscience

When I was prepping for the Truthin’ It sermon last Sunday, I really enjoyed studying Prov. 26:28. Consider this verse:

“A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.”

The first half of that verse is deeper than you might think. The common interpretation of that verse is that we lie about people because we hate them. Actually, Solomon would have you go deeper and look at the psychological and spiritual state of the liar himself.

The word “afflicted” carries the sense of being “crushed” or “broken” or “beaten small.” So this is a big lie (or a series of lies) that caused real damage to another person. This person has been broken or crushed by the lying tongue.

When that lying tongue “crushes” another person, and he sees the damage he caused that person, in his mind, he justifies his cruelty by hating that person for whatever reason. Seeing the damage caused by their lies, the liar convinces himself to hate the victim, that the victim deserved to be lied about – why? – to numb the conscience.

Every time the liar sees the person who was crushed by his lie and his conscience is perhaps pricked, he justifies in his mind why he should “hate” that victim as a mechanism to numb his feelings of guilt. He makes hatred overpower his conscience so he can feel justified in the evil he committed.

Hatred becomes the poison that kills the conscience and the fuel that justifies the lying.

If the liar stops hating the victim, he’d have to face the horrible wrong of what he did. So, by “justifying” the lies by hating that person, the liar in his mind chooses to think of that person as something evil and less human.

I recently watched an episode of 48 hours about Kimberly Langwell. An evil guy got dumped by Kimberly his girlfriend because he was super controlling. He got mad and killed her. Then he buried her under the slab of his own house under his own bedroom. The police eventually figured all of this out. There was overwhelming evidence against him. He was convicted. When the time came for the sentencing, the court played a recording of him calling his son from jail. In that call, he spewed out all this hatred toward her daughter, her young fifteen-year-old daughter. And the courtroom was just appalled by the fact that this guy would have all this unjustified hatred toward this innocent teenage girl who lost her mother.

I told my wife, “That makes perfect sense. I was just studying about that in Pro. 26:28.” He sees that daughter and he’s pricked by what he did. He still has a little bit of conscience left. He feels a little pain about what he did. So he convinces himself to hate her to numb his conscience. When you’re fueled by hatred, the ends oftentimes justify the means. And the conscience dies. (I remember the guy said to the to the judge, basically, “I made a mistake. I had a bad day. It was terrible, but I’m not psychotic or anything.” The judge basically said, “You killed a woman and you buried her under your house. That’s the definition of ‘psychotic.’ So maximum sentence to you.”)

Proverbs 26:28 points to the ultimate “doubling-down” in justifying evil that you’ve down. You choose in your mind to hate that person you hurt so you can numb the guilt and rationalize the wrong you’ve done. It’s like the liar burns the bridge and then blames the bridge for being flammable.

We might think of hatred as the fire that produces the smoke of a lie. But Solomon says the lie is the spark, and the hatred is the wildfire that’s used to cover the tracks of that offense.

Often, people lie because they’re thinking of self-preservation, protecting their reputation and pride and ego. But Proverbs tells us that the very thing you think is preserving yourself is in reality an act of hatred against someone else. Why? Because:

1. It harms the one you speak to (“afflicted by it”)
2. It withholds truth they need
3. It serves self over others
4. It undermines trust and reality
5. It opposes love, which rejoices in truth

Lying may feel like self-protection — but in God’s eyes, it’s relational destruction. And a lie basically says: “I’m willing for you to be harmed if it helps me.”