Mrs. Brown was shocked to learn that Junior had told a lie. Taking the youngster aside, she wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with him about the sin of lying. So she graphically explained the consequences of lying to him in the following way. She said to Junior, A tall man with red fiery eyes and two sharp horns grabs little boys who tell lies and carries them off at night. He takes them to Mars, where they have to work in a dark canyon for fifty years.
Now she concluded, being somewhat satisfied, You won't ever tell a lie again, will you dear? Junior looked up and said, No, Mom, you tell them better than I do. Lying is sort of like potato chips. I bet you can't tell just one. Because when you tell one, it leads to another, and often to another, and another, until fact and fiction are somewhat blurred.
I remember a young lady who was in a youth group that I was taking care of a number of years ago now in the ministry, who had gotten to that point in her own life as a teenager. She had told so many lies that she did not know any longer what was true and what was false. You could catch her in a lie, and she was so smooth that she would lie herself out of that lie, and not really know that she was lying. Her conscience had become seared to that sin.
Well did Sir Walter Scott write when he wrote these words, Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. When you and I live in a world that is used to falsehood, from politics to advertising, from religious charlatans to used car salesmen, lying has become a way of life for many, and not just the occasional slip of the tongue. It is the mortal sin of some of the media, making all of the media suspect of it.
Lying destroys, it destroys not only the individuals who practice it, their families, their associates, but lying ultimately destroys society. No relationship, no business association, no society can long exist which is constructed on deceit and lies. That is why God says in his word, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Because God knows that integrity and honesty in all of one's relationships are absolutely essential if those relationships are going to remain healthy, and if society is going to remain strong. God says you shall not bear false witness. In Exodus 20, 16 those words are found. He says you shall not lie about or lie to your neighbor. What is a lie? Some people are rather confused about that. But simply put a lie is the use of words or actions to deliberately mislead.
Augustine put it this way, a lie is a voluntary speaking of an untruth with an intention to deceive. That last phrase is important. Satan is the fountainhead of all lying. Satan is a liar and he is the father of lies said Jesus in John 8, 44. Bernard Schneider reminds us that Satan is the god of this world and goes on to suggest that his fingerprints are found all over it.
Whether we are talking about so-called little white lies or whoppers on the other hand, all dishonesty is a transgression of this commandment which is aimed at protecting the truth. Again in Deuteronomy 5, 20 this same command is quoted. Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 5 begins to elaborate on the law. He interprets it somewhat. There he uses a slightly different word for the word false witness. He says literally you shall not bear hollow witness, an insincere witness.
That is you shall not bear a witness against your neighbor which is void of reality and truth. Douglas Byers in his book tells about a man who went on a fishing trip that ended in total failure. And so on his way back into the city the fisherman stopped at a fish market. He called out to the dealer and said just throw me five of the biggest trout you've got. The dealer said throw them to you. Five four. He said so I can tell my wife I caught them. He said I'm a poor fisherman but I'm no liar.
Well, that's what he thinks. Perhaps you've been caught in a situation like one minister's family I heard about. A lady in the church brought over a mince pie for Christmas and she was good hearted but her good heart didn't always get into her cooking. On this particular occasion the pie was dry and a little bit over spiced and so they had to throw it out. They couldn't eat it. And so he wanted to be truthful and yet be kind to the woman.
So when he saw her he said we all appreciated your gift and let me assure you that a mince pie like yours never lasts long at our house. You see that's what Moses is really getting to. Don't let your witness to your neighbor be hollow. Be void of reality. How easy it is to use words that can deceive. In Proverbs 12-17 it says he who speaks truth tells what is right but a false witness deceit. God's main point here in this command is that our neighbor's most precious possession is his name.
So God says do not steal your neighbor's reputation, his name, by deceitful untrue remarks. The most obvious application of course is in the court of law where we are asked at least in our society to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help us God. And usually a little truth gets in. But the command goes beyond the law court. It incorporates and encompasses any relationship that we have. It includes any conversation that we carry on.
Honesty is the bedrock of a strong society. God provided for it in Israel through this commandment. This commandment includes also a variety of sins of the tongue. I think it might be important to point out that it would not include certain figures of speech such as hyperbole or exaggeration. Now exaggeration if it's intended to deceive is a lie. But exaggeration can be an employment of speech to make a certain point. In using it that way there is nothing in transgression of this commandment.
Nor is sarcasm for example, which is a legitimate figure of speech necessarily the breaking of the ninth commandment. Even the apostle Paul in writing the inspired words of God in 2 Corinthians uses sarcasm rather liberally. Nor is the telling of jokes or humorous stories which may not be factual the breaking of this commandment unless they are intended to mislead or deceive a person. Nor are methods of teaching like the use of parables the breaking of the ninth commandment.
A parable may not have actually happened, Jesus told many parables. But he wasn't lying because he wasn't intending to deceive. Indeed his intent was to make a point, it was to clarify. But the following things are included in the ninth commandment. The telling of half-truths or for that matter untruths in order to deceive and lead another person astray in his thinking. Douglas Byers said a complete lie is easily killed but a half-truth has nine lives.
It is far more deceptive because it is more believable. One doesn't have to be a youngster or even a teenager to know how to twist the facts and turn the truth to one's own advantage. Any of you who have small children know how children are wont to tell their side of the story but leave out a pertinent fact or two that might be important to get the whole story. We adults are equally skilled at doing the same thing. Gossip and tail-bearing would be included in the ninth commandment.
A number of times in the book of Proverbs, especially in chapter 26, the misuse of the tongue and bearing tales and gossip is condemned. Do you realize that the most untamed animal, the most vicious animal in all of the world is caged in your mouth through suggestion, through innuendo? We can destroy our neighbor. I was interested this last week to hear one of the U.S. representatives who was a potential candidate for president in 1988 denying again that he had a homosexual relationship.
Why is he going to the point that he is to deny the relationship? Because someone somewhere suggested that he had. Whether he did or didn't, I wouldn't know. But I know that just that hint in the media can destroy a man's hope for a higher office and his denying it so frequently may only speed up the process. How easily through gossip and tail-bearing, using of half-truths or untruths, we can bear false witness against our neighbor.
I think two included under the ninth commandment would be misleading advertising. Have you ever noticed the kind of people that do alcohol advertisements or cigarette advertisements? Do they look like the drunks that you see down on Skid Row? No. They don't show the end product of their advertising. They don't show where it leads. They don't show the broken homes, the children that go hungry. They don't show the misery that it causes.
They don't show the accidents where innocent people are killed. A couple of weeks ago, a whole family of five, a father of 27, a mother of 25, and three children, eight, five, and four, were all killed in one accident in Kansas because a drunk went over center line. A whole family wiped out. They don't show that kind of thing in the advertisements. Do you ever see a fellow with a cigarette who's got the tobacco stain in his fingers? They scrubbed that out pretty well.
Are his teeth ever yellowed? Does his breath smell? Do his clothes stink? Oh no, because you see their advertising wouldn't be very effective if they showed the real results of the cigarettes. So you see, advertising can be misleading. Any item that claims to provide perfect happiness and security in terms of material things, anything that promises to completely satisfy is a lie because there's nothing that materially can completely satisfy. Only Jesus can satisfy.
And then the ninth commandment embraces hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a lie that is simply lived out. It is to play a role that does not represent the truth about oneself. That is hypocrisy. A person, for example, who comes to church on Sunday morning and lives like the devil the rest of the week is a hypocrite. But a person who denies God and lives morally through the week is likewise a hypocrite. It doesn't represent what he really is on the inside. Hypocrisy is the living out of a lie.
I wonder how many of you this morning would say that one should always tell the truth. Do you believe that? Would you lift your hand? I believe one should always tell the truth. Now come on you chickens. Now some of you, how many of you say, no I don't think one should always tell the truth? Let's see. How many of you are not really sure? You're scared to lift your hand. That's what I figured. Let me remind you of Rahab. Remember her?
The spies of Israel came into Jericho as they were spying out the land. They went to the only place they could find lodging, to the inn that was run by a harlot. But the king of the city got wind that they were there and so he sent some soldiers to look for them. Rahab knew that so she hid them up on the roof under a pile of stuff. When they came to the door to get them, she said, well I didn't know who they were and they went that way.
And once the soldiers had taken off that direction, she went upstairs and let the fellows out the window down the wall and they escaped. She lied. Now if you read in the New Testament James chapter 2 verse 25, you will find that it seems to say there that the works that proved her faith were exemplified not only in her receiving the spies, notice, but also in her sending them away. Let me bring to your mind a more contemporary example. What about Cory Ten Boom?
And the brave people in World War II who hid Jews from the Nazi murderers. And when they were asked if there were Nazis there, they lied. What would you do in a case like that if one should always tell the truth? Of course we don't live in World War II. We live today in our age of medical technology. You know today we can keep people alive. My grandmother has been alive now for four weeks in intensive care, desiring to go home. We can keep people alive almost indefinitely.
What do you do when a grandparent, for example, is critically ill near death and a child, let's say a child, is killed in an accident? Do you tell the grandparent? What do you do if the grandparent says, where's Bobby? What are you going to say? You tell her the truth and make kill her. I believe I'm correct in saying that Joseph Kennedy never knew about the death of Bobby. I believe that that was kept from him. Does love ever make telling an untruth preferred over telling the truth?
If you'd like to investigate that question a little further, let me give you a couple of books to read because I'm not going to answer it for you this morning. I would encourage you to get a hold of a book by Norm Geisler called Options in Contemporary Christian Ethics or a man who would take a little different position than Geisler, Urban Lutzer, pastor at Moody Church in Chicago, his book Morality Gap.
These are questions that the philosophers and Christian ethicists think about and it's good for us to think about them from time to time as well because they do touch our lives. They do touch our lives, these questions. But apart from questions like these, there is obvious application of this commandment to our lives which cannot be debated. I'd like you to turn to the New Testament to Ephesians chapter 5 where we have it stated a little differently.
Excuse me, Ephesians chapter 4. We'll look at two verses in the chapter that deal with the subject that's before us this morning. First verse 25, after reminding us of the new person that we are in Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul says, therefore, in light of the new person that you are in Christ, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. And so here the Holy Spirit causes Paul to write the ninth commandment in the positive mode.
He doesn't say don't bear false witness, he says speak truth, every man with his neighbor. We are members one of another. To do that we must put away falsehood, whether it be falsehood of our lips, falsehood of lifestyle. We must remember that both lying lips and a lying life are an abomination to the Lord. And then we are to cause our lips to speak the truth to our neighbor. Why? Because we are members one of another. And if we lie to another person, we are actually undermining ourselves.
We are undermining the trust that the other person has in us. My little boy has a book that teaches this. It is a book that features the barren-stained bears. Are you familiar with them? And the lesson of the book is that once trust is broken, it cannot be easily restored. That's not good for children to know only. It's good for all of us to remember. Wives and wives, employees, employers, friends, partners, roommates.
When we lie to another person, we are undermining ourselves as well as that person. It is a dangerous thing to do. And that's why the New Testament says speak truth. Oh, may God enable us to put a guard upon our mouths so that we speak what is true and what is honest. But then a few verses before this, back in verse 15, he includes an additional thought. He says speak the truth in love.
In other words, we are to not only speak truth, but we are to speak it out of a heart of love – a heart of love. Warren Wiersbie has said, truth without love is brutality. Love without truth is hypocrisy. That's a good statement. Gentlemen, it's possible for you to be brutal to your wives by just speaking the truth. That breakfast may have tasted like a morning burnt sacrifice, but don't say it that way. She wants to know how it tastes. Speak the truth in love.
You're going to have to grapple with that ethical question we were talking about. Speak the truth in love. On the other hand, it's possible to be so loving that we compromise the truth. And we dare not do that. Speak the truth in love. All of us, every one of us, has the capacity to be a deceiver. And all of us have broken this commandment not just once, but many times.
And it may be this morning that you, sitting right there, have become aware through the Holy Spirit's work in your heart of a lie that you have told, that you're living out, and you know right now you're going to have to deal with it. What do you do? There's only one thing you can do with it, and that's face it and confess it to God. Because if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You need to face the reality of the lie.
And say before God, I have lied, and I acknowledge what I've done. Deal with that sin. If you're practicing a lie today in relation to God, you're lying to God. You realize that the first judgment of the church age came upon a husband and wife who were lying to God. They were lying about what they had given to the Lord. You say, what's the matter? Did they bring a tithe? No, they didn't bring 100%. They were pretending to bring 100% and were lying about it.
And so God slew them, and He said to them, you have not lied to men, you have lied to God, you have lied to the Holy Spirit. They were dead and buried. That was it. Thank God in His grace He doesn't strike all of us when we lie. Or there wouldn't be anybody here this morning, including the person behind the pulpit. We have to realize how lying offends a holy God, a God who is truth. We have to realize that.
That's why God pointedly in the book of Revelation says that no one who makes a lie will enter into heaven. He says that liars have their place in the lake of fire. Lying is offensive to God. Oh, thank God for His grace. Thank God for the cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ through which we can find forgiveness for all of our lives. We have to deal with lying. You may be a college student or a businessman or a homemaker.
If you find yourself today involved in a lie, it may be a lie that has been thrust upon you by the boss at work. He has said to you, you will do this or you'll lose your job. May I encourage you, ma'am, sir, lose your job before you sell yourself to a lie. We have to deal with our lying. Confess it. I want to encourage you to do that today before you leave here. But I want you to do something else. I want you to join me in committing ourselves to truthful tongues.
David prayed, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. He also prayed, I will guard my ways that I might not sin with my tongue. He opened himself before the Lord and said, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength in my Redeemer. Would you today pray that to the Lord? Say, Lord, set a guard over my mouth.
Lord, let the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth that come out of my heart be acceptable to you, the God of truth and the God of love. Perhaps the most tragic example of a false witness is found in Luke chapter 22. I'm looking beginning in verse 54 of this 22nd chapter of Luke where it says, And having arrested Jesus, they led him away and brought him to the house of the high priest, but Peter was following at a distance.
And after they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had set down together, Peter was sitting among them and a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the firelight and looking intently at him, said, This man was with him too. But he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him. And a little later another saw him and said, You are one of them too. Peter said, Man, I'm not.
And after about an hour had passed, another man began to insist, saying, Certainly this man was also with him, for he is a Galilean too. Peter said, Man, I do not know what you're talking about. And immediately while he was still speaking, a cock crowed. The first sentence in verse 61 is absolutely electrifying. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Can you see that? Can you bring that scene up to your mind? Jesus is there in the judgment hall. Peter was able to watch what was taking place.
Peter is denying out here around the fires, even knowing Jesus, undoubtedly hoping that Jesus won't hear these words. But immediately when the cock crowed, Jesus turned and their eyes met for an instant. And in that instant there was total devastation in the heart of Peter. It says that he remembered the word of the Lord and he went out and wept bitterly. As we sit here this morning, I wonder if the Lord hasn't turned and looked at someone here. And right now in your heart, you feel that look.
You can see his eyes and you feel the need to weep, to repent. Will you do the same thing Peter did? He wept his way into confession and out of it and got back into fellowship with the Lord. I admire the young lady who this last year was willing to go before the nation and admit her sin. Not only the sin of immorality, but the sin of having lied about it. At some point a few years ago she came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior. And Jesus turned and looked at her too.
And she remembered a man who was in prison in Illinois, whom she had falsely accused of assaulting her. She was willing to go to the state of Illinois and make things right in order that she might be forgiven and make restitution for a lie that had cost a man years of his life. She was willing not only to publicly testify of what she had done, but she was willing to be mocked by an incredulous media, judge, and public.
They could not get a hold of the fact that a person would come forward like that. The world cannot understand the work of God in the heart of this child. But God is working some hearts here this morning. God is talking to you about your witness. Where it has been false, will you talk to the Lord about it right now? Gracious Father, as James said, in many ways we all stumble and we all have stumbled in the use of our tongues.
I thank you for the cleansing that you give from guilt and the cleansing that you bring to the conscience when we honestly own up to our transgressions. Thank you for reminding us how important honesty and integrity are. This morning, Father, some of your dear children have seen Jesus turn and look at them. Like Peter, they are under great conviction. Help them to do what is right now. Enable them, I pray, to take the steps of confession and, if necessary, restitution.
Father, we pray together that you would this week set a guard over our mouths. Deliver us from the abomination of lying and deceiving. Teach us, we pray, to walk in the truth. In Jesus' name, amen.