At the start of mankind’s history, everything was based on truth. There was no twisting of facts, no manipulation or misrepresentation of the truth. Jehovah, the Creator, is “the God of truth.” His word is truth; he cannot lie, and he condemns lying and liars.—Psalm 31:5; John 17:17; Titus 1:2.
That being the case, how did untruth come to be? Jesus Christ provided the authoritative answer when he told his religious opposers, who were seeking to kill him: “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a manslayer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him.
When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie.” (John 8:44) Jesus, of course, was referring to the event in the garden of Eden when Satan induced the first human pair to disobey God and thus fall victim to sin and death.—Genesis 3:1-5; Romans 5:12.
Jesus’ words clearly identify Satan as “the father of the lie,” the originator of lying and untruth. Satan continues to be the chief proponent of untruth and, in fact, is “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” He bears a heavy responsibility for the damage that widespread lying has done to humans today.—Revelation 12:9.
The fundamental rivalry between truth and untruth, started by Satan the Devil, still rages today. It permeates all levels of human society and affects every individual. The way a person lives puts him on one side of the issue or the other.
Those on God’s side base their life course on the truth of God’s Word, the Bible. Anyone who does not follow the way of the truth falls, knowingly or unknowingly, into the hands of Satan because “the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.”—1 John 5:19; Matthew 7:13, 14.
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