June 28, 2009
Exodus 20:16
Liar! Liar!
SLIDE
In the book, The Day America Told the Truth, of the people surveyed, the authors found these results –
91% lie about trivial matters;
36% lie about important matters;
86% regularly lie to parents,
75% regularly lie to friends,
73% regularly lie to siblings, and
69% regularly lie to spouses. Daily Bread, 8/28/1992
Here’s what was intriguing about the study: People no longer seem to care about lying. We accept it. It doesn’t bother us. We don’t get upset anymore when someone exaggerates, falsifies, fabricates, or misrepresents the truth. We live in a day when we’ve been bombarded with erased tapes, tampered evidence, loophole lies, illicit cover-ups, padded resumes, and exaggerated ads, to the point that we’ve pretty much given up on truth ever being told.
Of course we have many different ways of speaking about lies. We call them - - -
White lies Bold-face lies Flattery Slander
Gossip Excuses Propaganda Spin
Exaggeration Half-truth Saving face Falsehoods
Shading the truth Perjury Misrepresenting the truth
False advertising Embellishment
So many people believe the 10 commandments are all relative. That means if you think something, a rule or commandment from God, does not fit into your framework of thinking, then it’s okay to break it. After all, it’s all relative, it’s all up to you to do whatever you think is right. No matter what God says.
We’ve come up with all kinds of lies. Lies such as ~
SLIDE- The check is in the mail.
- I’ll start my diet tomorrow.
- We service what we sell.
- Money cheerfully refunded.
- One size fits all.
- This offer is limited to the first 100 people who call in.
- Your luggage isn’t lost, it’s only misplaced.
- This hurts me more than it hurts you.
- I just need 1 minute of your time.
- Let’s have lunch sometime. (Bits & Pieces, December 9, 1993, pp. 12-13.)
Will we’re approaching the end of our series on the Ten Commandments. It’s amazed me just how little people have changed over the centuries. All of the commandments we’ve looked at are as relevant to us today as they were when they were first passed down to Moses from God.
SLIDEToday we are exploring the 9th Commandment, which is another one that hits us where we live. The 9th commandment states, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Now that sounds pretty simple, but let’s look at what God was getting at.
Sadly, we’ve come to expect our leaders to be liars, we expect sales people to lie to us and honesty is not something that comes easy for many people. We’ve come to accept lying as a part of life. It seems to roll off our tongues with ease. Lying is so natural that we don’t have to think about a story, it just comes, and when that is happening in our lives, we are in trouble.
Technically, this commandment deals with testimony in a court of law and the impact on the judicial system. There are also vast implications of not telling the truth in our everyday lives. While many of us do not worry about false testimony in a courtroom, we should worry about the ramifications to the daily lies. Let’s look at the technical side first.
We are not to give false testimony in legal proceedings. The legal system of the Old Testament and of any society is based on the honesty and truthfulness of those who participate in the system. Just think what would happen if we could not trust people who testify. Yet we hear about lies and dishonesty in the courts today. We can all think of examples of people giving false testimony.
In the Old Testament, God had a way of dealing with a person who tried to convict another person with false testimony.
4 SLIDESDeuteronomy 19 tells us, 16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, 17 the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, 19 then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. 20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
The point is, if you were a witness and you lied in order to convict someone of a crime, then whatever that crime was, the liar would receive it. If it was a possible death sentence the liar would receive death, and so on. Can you imagine if that was a very real threat today in our court system? Because you see, that was supposed to be the intent. Verse 20 tells us the people will hear of this and be afraid and will not do this type of stuff in the future. Wouldn’t that be great. Wouldn’t that be scary?!
BLANKThere is a second way in which we can bear false witness against our neighbor. It’s not the main meaning of the passage, yet, I believe it is still covered.
You see, bearing false witness against our neighbor means we are lying to them or about them. So, we are not to damage another person’s reputation or life with words which are not true.
Adam Clarke was an 18th century theologian, and in his commentary on Exodus, he wrote, “Not only false oaths, to deprive a man of his life or of his right, are here prohibited, but all whispering, tale-bearing, slander, and (calumny) false accusations; in a word, whatever is deposed as a truth, which is in fact false, and tends to injure another in his goods, person, or character, is against the spirit and letter of this law.”
Suppressing the truth when we know the truth, so that a person is injured emotionally, physically, materially, intellectually, financially or spiritually, because we withheld the truth about a situation, is also a crime against this commandment.
Can you imagine someone knowing the truth about a situation where you were erroneously implicated; and those who know the truth, who could get you freed . . . don’t say a word. We have the same obligation to speak the truth when we know others are speaking falsely against someone.
What message are we giving our children when we engage in ripping other people apart, or spreading stories about people they know? How are we teaching them right from wrong, good from bad, on top of not compromising biblical truth?
In the end, we are prohibited from lying. It’s been said, “A lie has no legs. It requires other lies to support it. Tell one lie and you are forced to tell others to back it up. Stretching the truth won’t make it last any longer. Those that think it’s permissible to tell white lies soon grow colorblind.”
On the same token we’ve heard it said that if you don’t have something good to say about someone, you are better off keeping your mouth closed. Because when we begin to say things about other people we tend to exaggerate just a little to get our point across, and pretty soon, if you’ve ever played the telephone game, the stories get spread all over, and the person sounds a whole lot worse.
We need to understand that satan is the source of all lies. In John 8:44, Jesus said,
SLIDEsatan was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Remember, when we first see satan in the Bible in Genesis 3 what is he doing? He’s lying to Eve. In essence, he tells her ‘God is a Kill-Joy, God is afraid of you and God is out to stop your fun in life.
Satan told Eve, “God wants to limit you. God wants all the good stuff for Himself.” As a result of believing satan, sin enters the world as Adam and Eve lose their innocence. Now they’re running and hiding.
It’s the biggest lie satan uses, as he attempts to beat it into our heads, that we cannot trust God, so we should follow satan’s way and live it up. Yet what does God tell us? Just the opposite, listen to Jesus in John 10:10 –
SLIDEThe thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
The thief is satan. His only desire is to steal your heart, kill your faith and destroy your hope. That is his mission in life. He will try to beat you any way he can. He will lie, he will cheat, he will deceive, he will pretend to be your friend, he will promise you what he cannot deliver . . . he is the father of lies.
CLICKOn the other hand, we have Jesus, who says
I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.
Friends, do you hear these words of hope from Jesus? He came to give us life, but not just a simple boring old life. He came to give us the time of our lives. He came to give us the greatest life imaginable, He came to give us life in super abundance, He came to give us more than we ever could imagine or dream of.
But we must accept His way of living, not our way, not the world’s way, it’s got to be His way, and we will experience the freedom and hope He offers us. Because Jesus is the only hope of the world. Jesus told us, He is the way, and He is the truth, and the truth will always set us free, because we are free in Christ.
We have become a new creation, that old person is now gone and we are no longer condemned, we are free and because we are free in Christ, because we live by His grace and His love, we know we should live a different type of life, one which avoids all of the lying and hypocrisy the world is all to aware of.
SLIDE
Paul told the people in Colossians 3:9-10 - 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
We are supposed to be changed people, having put on our new selves, because we have salvation in Christ. It’s part of what we saw earlier this morning when Meredith was baptized. It was a reminder that we die to our old way of living and we come up out of the water as that new person in Christ, seeking to live a life which brings glory and honor to Him. And one way to do this, is not to lie.
The world can be a cruel place. Let’s not be part of the problem. Do not be one who tears apart another person with your speech. Frankly, it’s the most cowardly form of destruction because the person who is being attacked can’t defend themselves.
Instead, make sure your speech is pure and that it builds up people, encourage one another. We all struggle with this at times. Let people know you as a person of integrity, a person who can be trusted.
I read about a high school golfer, Chelsee Richard, of Bloomingdale High School in Brandon, Florida. She lost her chance to win the 2004 state championship — by being honest. In the qualifier for the state finals, Chelsee hit her tee shot on the second hole into the rough. Without knowing it, she played another golfer’s ball out of the rough and finished the hole. On the third hole, she realized what she had done. The rule is that a golfer must declare on that hole, they hit the wrong ball before putting the ball into the hole, or they are disqualified.
Chelsee drew strength from her favorite Bible verse, Philippians 4:13 - “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” She reported her error, a painful ending to her senior season and her dream of going to state. She said: “With my faith and with God, being honest was the most important thing to me, and that’s what is going to advance on throughout my life, being honest and making the right choices.” (November, 2004; www.PreachingToday.com)
Her honesty spoke of her Christian faith and the Lord she serves. Honesty is important. The truth really does matter, because it honors Christ. It makes our faith in Jesus more attractive to a world longing for something better than what they have.
