Why live with integrity?
Text: Proverbs 10:9
Hosts:
Tim DeFor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: Is honesty always the best policy? After all, sometimes a little bending of the truth can get you ahead in life, whether it's getting a promotion, Maintaining a romantic relationship, or simply getting your way, a little twisting of the truth can be an effective strategy to come out on top. But is that true? What if the little lie has big consequences? Why should we live a life of integrity? Listen in as we find the answer in the book of Proverbs. Today, while Dr. Kent is away teaching with Crosstalk, Join Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and guest host Tim Defor as they discover Solomon's insight to integrity in Proverbs 10:9. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and Tim Defor continue our journey through Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs chapter 10, verse 9, as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Most people innately know that lying is wrong, but we also know that there can be amazing benefits if we're deceptive.
Vicki: Amazing benefits.
Nathan: Amazing benefits.
Tim: So good sales pitch.
Nathan: That's right, we're trying cell deception in this episode. So, Tim, welcome back.
Tim: Thank you.
Nathan: And, uh, Vicki, good to see you again.
Vicki: Thank you.
Nathan: As we've thought about this, what are jobs, roles, or situations that people might think they'll benefit from being deceptive?
Tim: That's a great question. When I first started thinking about it, I thought, I don't know of an area of our life where we can't think of something that deception would make us feel like there could be a benefit.
Nathan: I thought you were about to shame us and say, I I can't imagine where deception would work out for us.
Tim: I'm like, oh, I don't know who you hang out with, but I can't imagine. No, every area. And I think notoriously people might think of things like a used car dealer that will hide, hide the flaws or turn an odometer backwards if, if you could still even do something like that. But it's not just that. That's just the ones that kind of gain a reputation. But, uh, you know, if you're renting a place, do you lie about pets? If you applying for a job? Do you falsify credentials or your education? There's so many different areas I could see that you think that it's going to be helpful. Yeah.
Vicki: And it didn't matter who you are or how high up the food chain you are. I think, "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky." I mean, everybody does it at some point in their life.
Tim: Yeah. I saw a thing where a superintendent of the largest school district in a state had lied about having a doctorate, and they decided to keep him anyway, which is an interesting twist. But yeah, but he certainly is not welcomed among others who had actually earned that responsibility in that role. But it's true in family relationships. It's true in your taxes. It's true There's so many areas. I can't think of one there's not.
Nathan: I think about that superintendent you mentioned. I remember reading that story and the lesson, of course, kids, is deception works. You lie to get the job and when you were found out, eh, we'll let you keep it anyways, right?
Tim: Is that what you want an educator to teach your kids?
Vicki: I want off this boat.
Brian: Yeah.
Nathan: I remember there was a high position in one of the biggest Protestant denominations in the country not terribly long ago. And this gentleman who was already kind of on the team, but not that high up yet, he had lied about multiple degrees. And then he applied for the highest position and someone actually did their due diligence and found out that he had no degrees at all whatsoever from any of the institutions he claimed to have degrees. Yeah, so it even happens within church communities and Christian communities. Now, he did not get the job, fortunately. That's good.
Tim: That's good.
Vicki: Oh, I think about— I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but a movie star who wrote applications for her kids to get into law school and college, and they got in.
Tim: Mm-hmm.
Nathan: Lori Loughlin.
Vicki: She was— yeah. What?
Nathan: Lori Loughlin.
Vicki: Lori Loughlin. But she went to prison. Yeah, they got in school, but she went to prison.
Tim: And you think of George Santos, who has a record of serial lying, like lots of things that just seem really strange. Why would you even lie about that? But seemed to gain him influence and position.
Nathan: Yeah, not a shocker. Politicians lie, right?
Vicki: Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan: So in many of those same situations, what could integrity cost you, right? You're doing your taxes, you're applying for the job. What could it cost you?
Vicki: Oh, it could cost you money. It could cost you— you think it's going to cost you your reputation. If you don't get found out, it behooves you, it helps you. You think, yay, yay, yay.
Tim: Right. Yeah, I think you can, like you said, you can lose your job, probably rightfully so for certain things. I think it caused you to lose sleep and health and the stress and the cortisol and the tensions that you face. Even if some might not know, there's going to be others that do know. If your spouse knows that you lied about something, Even if it doesn't impact you immediately, I think it loses and erodes trust with your spouse, with your friends, future opportunities, people who are willing to do business with you. I think there's so many ways that it could cost.
Nathan: Yeah.
Tim: Well, if you think of those same situations, you can think of you might not get accepted to a school, you might not get a promotion, if you tell the truth, but even after the fact, if you tell the truth, then whatever it is you've gained might be stripped away from you. So it's, it's almost like, uh, the avoidance of the initial loss ends up introducing a greater loss later.
Nathan: Yeah, it compounds itself, doesn't it?
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Okay, so why live with integrity? Solomon knew the temptation to use deception to get ahead was an impulse we need to ignore, because it's hard to ignore. It's almost impossible to ignore. But that's why he wrote Proverbs 10:9. Vicki, you want to read our proverb of the day here?
Vicki: Sure. It says, whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
Nathan: Yeah, I like this because Solomon, he contrasts it between people who live life telling the truth with those who lie their way through life, right? So the man and woman with integrity never has to worry about their lies coming back to haunt them, is what he's getting at.
Vicki: Yeah, you don't have to, you don't have to remember, right?
Nathan: Right. You don't have— what lie did I tell? What was the exact specific issue? You know, but the person who's crooked or manipulates the truth, like we're saying, they, they will eventually be revealed to be a liar according to Solomon. Uh, and generally I think that's true. It always, it always comes out. So there's a short-term and long-term view here. Playing fast and loose with the truth has short-term gains. But long-term consequences, while being honest might have short-term losses but features long-term gains. It's almost like the difference between binge shopping with a credit card. In the moment it feels great, but when you're still paying off the debt for decades to come, it hurts.
Vicki: It hurts.
Nathan: It sure does. But if you save or safely invest your money, you make sacrifices now, but years down the road you have much more financial security. And so Solomon says, live with integrity, be a truth teller, because short-term gains from deception will be wiped out in time. So have you guys seen long-term consequences for deception?
Tim: I have, yes. Well, I had a longtime friend who was a pastor who was known by some to— or at least it seemed like he would tell a story to one person and tell a little different twist of the story to another, and not in the way of I just remembered it wrong, but shape the story to benefit him or the way that he looked in their eyes. And this happened over years and years and years, and it just always felt strange. But eventually it caught, caught up with him, and eventually he lost his job. It was like there was never a smoking gun. There was always an excuse. But then eventually It just compounded to the point where he lost his job, he lost friendships, he lost trust of others in ministry that knew him, lost trust of other church leaders, and then it also created consequences for others who felt the sting of having somebody they trusted do that. That wasn't super long ago, and so it's fresh to me.
Nathan: Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, it's devastating. Just like you said before, it's like the small things compounding over time, building and building and building.
Tim: Yeah, I've witnessed marriages fall apart, and then it impacts not just them but their kids and their relationship with their grandchildren. Yeah, there's just so many. I can't think of an area that it doesn't deeply have long-term consequences.
Nathan: I had a friend who's departed, he's with the Lord now, but he, uh, and this is a public story that he had shared, uh, multiple ways, so I don't have a problem sharing it with you, but he, before he was a Christian, was like a serial adulterer, and he just cheated and cheated and cheated on his wife. And he told me, this was before cell phones, that he was terrified every time the phone rang in the house because he didn't know who was on the other end. Was it one of his, his mistresses? Was it a husband? Was it a boyfriend? You know, was it somebody who saw them at the, the, the store or at the, uh, the restaurant that they were at? And he just, uh, he was just terrified. So much so that he said to to almost the day he died, even though he had repented and had been a faithful husband and, you know, hadn't cheated in decades and decades and decades. Whenever he heard a phone ring, he still got a twinge of anxiety because he lived with that deception for so long that phones were now the enemy. I can't imagine watching a TV show. Bring! Oh, who's on the other end?
Tim: Yes.
Vicki: Yeah, I had a friend who was married, and she'd been divorced several times. And one guy died, one guy cheated on her, one guy this, that. And her current husband, she was divorcing because he cheated on her. And he was the only husband I knew. And he called me and he said, can I come talk to you? And I didn't think that was a good idea, but he ended up talking to me because he fixed computers. And he said, I've just got to talk to somebody. She's telling people that I cheated on her, which is what she told me. And he said, I didn't, I didn't. And he said, she's cheating on me. And I didn't think that was true.
Tim: Oh.
Vicki: And he said, she's cheating on me. And I said, I don't believe that's true. And he said, she is. He said, I can prove it. And I said, "How?" And he said, "I'll show you a dating site she's on. And she traveled to other states." And I said, "Okay, show me." And he did.
Tim: Oh.
Vicki: And I saw her ad. And I don't ever want to be friends with her again. Once my husband cheated on me, you know, lying, I don't know how I felt about it before, but it wasn't a top 10 sin to me, I don't think. But now, 'Boy, you lie to me, be aware, I don't even want a surprise party if you're going to have to lie to me to pull it off. I just, that's a big deal sin to me now.' And I don't want to be friends with her anymore. And she'll call me and she'll say, 'You know, why aren't we friends?' And I'll, I don't know what I do, but she'll text me really, and I just kind of don't answer the text. I don't want to be friends with her anymore because I know she's deceptive. And it turns out even the husband who died, died after they were divorced. She cheated on all of them, he told me.
Tim: And, oh wow.
Vicki: Yeah, I don't trust her. I don't have respect for her anymore. There's consequences to deception.
Nathan: Yeah, so you're not only— it's not only financial, it's not only loss of job, I mean, it's relationships.
Tim: It seems like primarily the biggest cost is relational. It could be business relationship, family relationship, friendship, church relationship. All the financial gain or the position gain is big, but ultimately, it's the relationships that suffer the most.
Nathan: And those are the most important thing.
Vicki: Those are the most important thing.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: Okay. So let's imagine we have listeners who struggle with integrity issues. And this is actually a really good place to do this because if you're struggling with integrity issues, you're not coming on here saying, Yes, I struggle with integrity issues and I would like to out myself to everybody. Let's imagine we have listeners who struggle with that. What are steps or strategies he or she could take toward truth-telling?
Vicki: Well, let me just throw this out here. I had a friend who— have a friend, I like him a lot. He's a pastor and he did a devotion once on truth-telling and he said that was one of his biggest sins. And he was out there with it. He said he'd get overwhelmed and people would want his time and he'd lie. And he'd say, "I can't do it because..." and he'd make up something. Or I don't know, I just found it hard to believe, but apparently he lied to me even. But he lied. And he said the way he stopped it is he substituted. And he said that's how you stop anything. If you're going to eat too much sugar, you've got to choose to eat something healthy. If you're out of shape, you've got to choose to lift weights or run or walk. If you're going to do this, you have to substitute. So when he was tempted to lie, he would choose to tell the truth, and he had to make himself do it. But that stuck with me. You have to choose to do the opposite thing.
Tim: Yeah, that's good. I was thinking about that. Uh, somebody gave me the wisdom that you don't have to tell everybody everything, but everybody has to have somebody they can tell everything. And when I was thinking about that applied to this, find somebody to start confessing to. Uh, find somebody to come clean to, somebody that's trusted. And it doesn't mean that day one you step in and you tell them every deep, dark everything, but start, 'cause I think one of the fears that we have of truth is that it will destroy relationships, and it's gonna harm some of them for sure, but the reality is, over time, truth-telling builds the relationship. So that's something I would encourage is having people find somebody you can start opening up to, and even the idea of if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just and will purify us from all unrighteousness and cleanse us from our sins. That's not just about forgiveness. That's about removing the, the bad, uh, and so the confession to somebody is a way that God uses his people to help remold our thinking around, around those things.
Vicki: Yeah, that's biblical too. It says confess your sins one to another. I do think it's crucial who you confess to.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. You have to have someone that's trustworthy for sure.
Vicki: Trustworthy for sure.
Nathan: But, but that is the beautiful thing about confession and repentance is sin thrives in darkness, right? So it's like mushrooms.
Vicki: It's like mushrooms. That's a good analogy.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. You grow them on, well, manure and in darkness. But if you were to open up the roof and expose them to light, they would just shrivel up and go away. And so sin thrives in darkness, which I think is why so many pastors struggle with sin. They don't have someone that they can, a trusted someone.
Vicki: You know who else doesn't is pastors' wives.
Nathan: Oh yeah.
Vicki: I had a friend who was a pastor's wife and she confided in me and I made it absolutely certain that she could be. I said to her, I want to be able to go to church and listen to your husband preach. And not think, "That jerk." You know, so don't tell me too much, but you need to have somebody to talk to. And because she just, you know, she couldn't go to women in the church, and she couldn't— she didn't feel like she could go to women in the neighborhood. So I said, "I want to be your safe place because you've got to be able to talk." Yeah. Change of subject. I've got a question here. I think we need to be people of integrity if we are believers because we are called to be godly.
Nathan: Right.
Vicki: This verse says, though, deception will always be revealed. Will it?
Nathan: Well, so this is a proverb. So we say it's a general truth.
Vicki: Okay. Okay. Okay. That's good.
Nathan: So whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out. I don't think it's a promise you will always be found out or every little thing will.
Vicki: Good point. It's a proverb.
Nathan: Yeah, but at the end of days, our sins are laid bare. If they're not paid for by Christ, our sins are laid bare. You will be found out. And, uh, I don't know, personal experience, uh, I guess I wouldn't know if someone deceived me for their entire life and I— and they got away with it. But my personal experience, for, for me, is my lack of integrity usually gets exposed. I don't know, Tim, do you have, uh—
Tim: oh, for sure, for sure. Yeah, there's so many different ways that— I really appreciate that question because there's so many ways that they can be found out. Now, it doesn't mean that everybody's going to find out, and it could mean that a very small group of people find out, and you might not even ever know if they found out because they might distance themselves. But there's impacts that affect us that we might not even be aware of. So it's not just the fear that somebody will confront you. It's also that the reality of your deception will be seen by others, and they might choose to distance themselves or not trust you or tell somebody else or whatever it might be. So, but ultimately you're right. Even if you get away with it in this life, it will be found out, and it's not necessarily that the exposure will cause us to be kept out of God's presence. But it will be a moment that we'll think that, that was not honoring. And there'll be some sense of, of maybe regret. I don't know what the right word is. Repentance in the moment. Yeah.
Nathan: In 1990, while in the air, the left windscreen, also known as a windshield, of British Airways Flight 5390 fell off of the plane. Just fell off. The pilot was pulled out of the window headfirst from the decompression. Fortunately, his feet caught on the flight controls. For the next 20 minutes, members of the flight deck held on to the pilot thinking that he was dead as the copilot initiated an emergency landing. Miraculously, the pilot survived with minor injuries.
Tim: Huh.
Nathan: So the question is, what caused the windscreen to fall off? It wasn't like a duck or something that ran into it. It wasn't because they bashed it with a hammer from the inside. Investigators managed to recover the majority of the screws from the windscreen, which I don't even know— I don't want that job. Find every screw that fell off this plane while it was 17,000 feet in the air. They managed to find the majority of the screws for the windscreen, and they discovered that every screw was either slightly too narrow or too short. So when it was being replaced just a few days before this flight, rather than consult the manual, which is what they were supposed to do, the maintenance team replaced the windscreen before the flight, um, using the same type of screws that were already in. So the previous team had replaced the windscreen with a particular type of set of screws, and this maintenance team said, okay, this screw's in here, we'll replace it with this one. And guess what happened before The last time they had done it again, every maintenance crew just looked at what was already in there and replaced it with the exact same one. No one had consulted the manual and realized we are using screws that are either too short or too narrow. And eventually that windshield gave out and caused potentially cataclysmic damage.
Vicki: You could see where that would happen.
Tim: Yep.
Nathan: So they had to change the, the industry going on from thereforward. Solomon gives us the same catastrophic image here. Our deception will compound over time. You tell a lie, eh, maybe you get away with it. You tell another one, you tell another one, you tell another one. Eventually it affects you. Maybe it'll come out publicly, or maybe like Tim pointed out, it will, uh, affect our lives in ways that we can't even qualify, but it will affect us. The error— the errors grow and grow until failure is inevitable. You might see people get ahead in life with deception, but don't follow them down that path. Consult the manual. Otherwise, your windshield might just fall off the plane.
Brian: Why should we live lives of integrity? Because as we heard today, somehow or another, in this life or the next, our deception will be revealed. If we lie, eventually our windshield might fall off the plane. I trust that today's discussion of God's word has been helpful and serves as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the word, but doers. Together, let's bring God's word to life, to our lives this week. The Crosstalk Podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. Crosstalk is training leaders in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, Kenya, and Kansas this season. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support the show by rating it on whatever platform you're listening to us. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.
Nathan: Our goal is to bring the Bible to life into all our lives. I'm Bryan French. Today, Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Arvin, Tim Defor continue our journey.
Vicki: You have no integrity through Proverbs.
Nathan: I am Bryan French. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs.
Vicki: Good show.
Nathan: Yeah, this was good.
Tim: That's good. I like that.
Vicki: Good show.
Tim: You've convinced me. You know, stop lying.
Nathan: I can't—
Vicki: he was in the air and he got sucked out of a plane and he didn't die.
Nathan: Unreal. But they— the story is incredible. I mean, obviously, I didn't want to go into the whole thing, but he, he got— he got sucked out his feet. fell or got tangled in the flight controls. So now they can't fly the plane because his feet are in there. Two members of the flight crew came in, strapped themselves into the captain's chair, and then tried to hold on to him for dear life, tried to get his feet off of the flight controls. Meanwhile, because of the decompression, there's stuff flying, they can't move the flight controls, the door is up against the flight controls, they're trying to move everything out of the way, and, and that oxygen's getting sucked out of the plane because they were like 17,000 feet above. So they're trying to dive low enough so that they're air pressure so that everyone will survive in the plane because they apparently don't have enough oxygen for everybody. They finally get it to a lower area. Meanwhile, they're holding on to this guy. He's not responding at all, and they think he's dead. They think the pilot's dead, but they don't want to release him because they're afraid if they release him, his body will fly through the air and get stuck in one of the engines and blow up the engine, causing more catastrophic failure. So they're holding on to what they think is a dead body. And, uh, and meanwhile, he's trying to get permission on, on where to go and where he can land safely, and he can't hear them because of all the decompression and all the air rushing through. So he finds the place to, uh, he finally hears and thinks, okay, I can land. He lands the plane. Emergency crews rush out and they, they get the, the pilot dangling off the edge of the plane. They're able to get a ladder up to him. They bring him down and he only had— he hadn't lost consciousness. He had, uh, lots of cuts and bruises and, uh, some significant frostbite Uh, the co-pilot who successfully landed the plane had some frostbite, um, but everyone survived.
Vicki: Amazing.
Nathan: And, uh, and then the police, it was their job to look over a 5-mile radius for, for these missing screws.
Vicki: And they're little screws.
Nathan: They're not big at all. And they, they were— there was like, I don't know, like something like 90 screws, um, and they recovered like 65 of them or something like that. So yeah, lots of human error involved with that, but miraculous that everyone survived. The captain and copilot eventually went back into aviation. The captain, as you would imagine, didn't last long because he kept having PTSD issues. So—
Tim: Yeah, every time somebody opened the window of their car, just like—
Nathan: I was just, "No!" Oh, horrible. But yeah, yeah. So it's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.
Vicki: Oh, wow.