Tonight I want to begin by stating four famous quotes. I am sure that you have heard them before, and I want you to think about what they all have in common.
"Read My Lips, No New Taxes.” – George H Bush
“I did not inhale.” - Bill Clinton.
"The American people have a right to know that their president is not a crook. And I am not a crook." - Richard Nixon
"I will be devoting the rest of my life to finding the real killer of my wife Nicole and Ronald Goldman." - O. J. Simpson
Can you guess what all of these have in common? By looking back at these quotes you know that all three of them are some of the more famous violations of the ninth commandment, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor."
But they were not the first. Listen to Genesis 3:1 - 13.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all."
We read in Proverbs 6: 16 - 19 a top seven list of the things God hates. "There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers."
Have you ever noticed that nearly 30% of that list includes lying.
And our never changing God carried that thought over into the New Testament when He lead Paul to write in Ephesians 4:20 – 25 the implications of living as children of light. Listen to how much of this passage is devoted to truth and to avoiding deceit.
"You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body."
I doubt that there is another commandment, other than the first, which is so routinely violated in our culture these days. And it’s not just these days. You probably can’t find another topic so thoroughly covered in the Bible. Scripture’s prohibitions against lying, and its commandments to tell the truth, are found in both Testaments and in almost every book. Clearly, human beings have had a problem with telling lies when the truth would have done better since the very beginning.
The most direct application of the ninth commandment involves perjury in a formal judicial hearing. And the Law of Moses took perjury very seriously.
Listen to Deuteronomy 19:15 - 21.
God knew that when testimony is given in a court of law, more than fortunes are at stake. Lives may be on the line. But before you get to excited remember to restrict the ninth commandment to legal proceedings is to limit this law. It covers far more than the testimony people give under oath. This commandment seeks to protect the sanctity of a person’s reputation.
I am going to have to write a short note of apology to my High School Literature teacher this week for this but do you remember the Shakespeare play Othello? Well in Act III, scene 3, we read; "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls; Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, ’tis nothing; ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he who filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed."
I can’t believe that I used Shakespeare in my real job! Anyway our reputations are among the most sacred things we possess.
Solomon writes in Proverbs 22:1, "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold."
When we falsely accuse someone of something, we have taken from them something that cannot be returned. Ask anyone whose ever been accused of dishonest business practices if they’ve ever lived down the false charge? Not to mention the false accusations of child abuse routinely leveled at parents in the midst of heated custody hearings.
And its not just false testimony about someone’s character that robs them of their reputation. Anytime we gossip about someone, even if it what we say is true, we are violating at the very least the spirit of the 9th commandment, if not the letter. Gossip is simply the vice of confessing someone else’s sins.
Quickly let me suggest something you can do to head off gossip at the pass. The next time someone sidles up to you and says, "Hey, did you hear about .... ", answer them like this; "No and I don’t think I want to hear about it. I’m sure you’ve carefully researched all the facts, but in the unlikely event that you are wrong, what you are about to tell me will forever change how I feel about this person. And even if it is true, I don’t need to hear it. You need to take this to the person himself/herself or at least talk to the elders."
Or you could simply quote scripture to them. James 4:11 says, "Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against or judges his brother or sister, speaks against the law and judges it."
Now I know that’s pretty strong language and we might have a hard time saying that. But I’ve found that you virtually have to hit gossips over the head with a 2X4 to get the point across. And if they will talk to you about someone else, you just bet that they are talking to someone else about you.
Don’t think you are jeopardizing a healthy relationship by being blunt. In fact, you may be saving their soul by wounding their pride. Remember, one of the things God hates is someone who stirs up dissension among brothers and sisters.
Perjury and gossip are covered by the 9th commandment and so is good old fashioned lying. There are many different ways to tell a lie. Sometimes we lie by intentionally using inaccurate words.
Winston Churchill defined a lie as "terminological inexactitude." It is hard to say but I think it makes the point. We need to be precise and truthful with the very words we speak.
But there are other ways of lying. John Ruskin wrote, "The essence is in deception, not in words. A lie may be told by silence, by hedging, by the accent on a syllable ... and all these kinds of lies are worse than a lie plainly told."
So I guess we need a workable definition of what it means to lie. The clearest definition of a lie is simply this; anything we purposefully say or do that is intended to mislead another person.
So does that mean that not telling everything you know a lie? Not necessarily. Honesty means that everything you say must be true, not that everything that is true must be said.
If I think your new hair cut makes Phyllis Diller’s hairdo look good by comparison, I’m not going to volunteer that opinion. Now if you ask me what I think of your new hairstyle, we are both in jeopardy. I must be quick enough on my feet to give you an honest, but gentle answer and you must be brave enough to accept the answer you asked for.
On the other hand, if you have information that you are morally obligated to share, your silence is a lie. What if you are asked to give a reference for someone you know has a history of stealing from the company?
What if someone with a criminal record of child abuse about which you know applies for a job at the local day care center? What do you do then?
The best way to handle that very difficult situation is to honestly confront the individual and tell them, "Look, this is very painful for me, but I cannot give you a good recommendation and I think we both know why." You have avoided gossip by going directly to the person involved. You have avoided lying by courageously sticking with the truth.
And let me add this just here. Lies don’t come in colors. There is no such thing as a white lie. What we mean by a "white lie," is one that doesn’t hurt anybody. One that doesn’t involve important issues. One that simply spares someone some hurt feelings or avoids a potential confrontation we have deemed unnecessary. But there is no such thing.
Don’t believe me? Just watch some old I Love Lucy reruns. Lucy lied to Ricky in just about every episode. They were always little white lies, but every time they exploded into a full scale mess. On the old Lucy shows it was funny. In real life people’s feelings are wounded, their trust in what we say is eroded, our relationships are cheapened.
Jesus said something haunting in Matthew 12:36, 37. "But I tell you that men and women will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned."
In his new Book “God is Closer Than You Think.” John Ortberg talks about Spiritual Habituation. Psychologists who deal with the study of perception refer to a phenomenon called "habituation." The idea is that when a new object is introduced to our environment, we are intensely aware of it, but the awareness fades over time. For instance, when we first begin to wear a new wristwatch, we feel it on our wrist constantly, but after a while we don’t even notice that it’s there. When people move into a new home, they generally have a list of things they must repair or remodel because the sight of them is intolerable. Five years later, they may still have the same list, but the lack of repair doesn’t bother them anymore.
One of the greatest challenges in life is fighting what might be called spiritual habituation. We simply drift into acceptance of life in spiritual maintenance mode. We rationalize it because we think, "I’m not involved in major scandalous sin. I haven’t done anything to jeopardize getting into heaven. I’m doing okay." And we forget that Jesus never said, "I have come that you might do okay." Okay is not okay. We have a kind of spiritual attention deficit disorder that God will have to break through.
When life is on spiritual autopilot, rivers of living water do not flow through it with energy and joy. Instead if we hate someone it’s OK, If we tell one white lie it will hurt no one, so what if I have fantasies about someone who is not my wife or husband. Does it really matter if I don’t put any money in the collection plate? God loves a cheerful giver and I would be cheerful if I could go out and get a big juicy steak.
Spiritual habituation is in some ways more dangerous than spiritual depravity because it can be so subtle, so gradual. Mostly it involves a failure to see.
When we break the 9th Commandment on a regular basis we have slipped into Spiritual Habituation.
Dallas Willard writes about a two-and-a-half-year-old girl in the backyard who one day discovered the secret to making mud (which she called "warm chocolate"). Her grandmother had been reading and was facing away from the action, but after cleaning up what was to her a mess, she told little Larissa not to make any more chocolate and turned her chair around so as to be facing her granddaughter.
The little girl soon resumed her "warm chocolate" routine, with one request posed as sweetly as a two-and-a-half-year-old can make it: "Don’t look at me, Nana. Okay?"
Nana of course agreed. Larissa continued to manufacture warm chocolate. Three times she said, as she continued her work, "Don’t look at me, Nana. Okay?"
Then Willard writes, "Thus the tender soul of a little child shows us how necessary it is to us that we be unobserved in our wrong.”
Any time we choose to break the 9th Commandment or any of the Commandments that we don’t thin of as a Big deal, we choose hiddenness as well. It may be that out of all the prayers that are ever spoken, the most common one-the quietest one, the one that we least acknowledge making-is simply this: Don’t look at me, God.
It was the very first prayer spoken after the Fall. God came to walk in the garden, to be with the man and the woman, and called, "Where are you?"
"I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, ... so I hid." Don’t look at me, God.
A businessman on the road checks into a motel room late at night. He knows the kind of movies that are available to him in the room. No one will know. His wife won’t find out; his kids won’t see. (The motel has a disclaimer: "The name of movie you watch won’t be on your bill. Go ahead. No one will know.") First he has to say a little prayer: "Don’t look at me, God."
An executive who’s going to pad an expense account. An employee who is going to deliberately make a coworker look bad, A student who looks at somebody else’s paper during an exam, A church member who looks forward to the chance to gossip, All first must say a little prayer.
We don’t say it out loud, of course. We probably don’t admit it even to ourselves. But it’s the choice our heart makes: Don’t look at me, God.
After a while this prayer can become so ingrained that we’re not even aware of it.
When we lie, by our silence, by intentionally misleading someone, by outright deceit, we erode the foundation of trust on which community is built, and our prayer becomes Don’t Look At me God.
Lies are the deeply hidden fault lines beneath our lives. Even the slightest movement away from full and total honesty sends a tremor to the surface where we live, shaking everything we have labored to build. It takes decades to build a citadel of trust. It takes one lie to tear it down.
John K. Stoner said, "Speaking the truth is the most significant political action available to any of us - not voting, but speaking the truth. This view is based on the familiar biblical notion that the Word is central. The Word is the truth; the expression of truth by human lips moves culture and history toward the government of God. There is no higher form of political action, nor is there one that can contribute more to the wholeness of the human community."
I suspect that there are some here tonight who need to speak the truth.
Specifically, we need to tell the truth that we have been living a falsehood. We may have said all the right words, but our actions have not been consistent with our language. We’ve claimed Christianity, but we have lived by a different standard. Truth is not reserved just for what we say. Its clearest expression is seen in how we live. Has your life been a testimony to truth? Or do you pray on an daily or hourly basis, Don’t Look at me God?
